If you’ve been enthusiastically following the progress of the Raspberry Pi and other projects involved with the cheap micro-PC, then you’ll be aware of Raspbmc already. For those that don’t know, Raspbmc is a minimal Linux distribution based on Debian that brings XBMC to Raspberry Pi.

The Raspbmc team has been going all out for a whole year now, and the software has now finally reached version 1.0, and the download is available to everybody over at their website.

The free and open source distro can be copied via an SD card from the website and booted on your Rasberry Pi with ease. You can also purchase licenses from the Raspberry Pi store for MPEG-2 and VC-1 hardware decoding for a small amount of money, allowing you to raise the full potential of XBMC’s media features.

You can learn more about Rasbmc on their website.

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Considering purchasing a Raspberry Pi? At around $35, it is quite an exceptional value for a device that can be used for a lot of general computing tasks. So what exactly CAN you do with the Raspberry Pi? Honestly, it really depends on how much work you are willing to put into it and how wide your imagination extends.

If you want to do something simple yet quite fun, the Raspberry Pi can easily transform into a very capable media center device using the XBMC video player.

How well does the Pi work as a media playing device? Considering it is only a 700MHz processor with 256MB of RAM– not bad at all. It might run even better if I overclocked it, but I haven’t messed around with that yet.

The only downside to the Raspberry Pi is that it is in such high demand that you will probably wait a few months after purchasing before it actually ships to you.

If you have your Pi now and want to see how it works as a media center, follow the instructions I’ve listed below.

I’ve posted a short video that shows Raspberry Pi running XBMC, I apologize if the video is a bit bright but it at least gives you an idea of what to expect if you want to use the Pi as a media center device.

Getting Started

There are several ways to go about getting XBMC up and running. What I’m going to do is use something called openElec. This basically is a simple installation of XBMC that takes under a minute to boot.

Alright, so what do you need to get started? Let’s talk about hardware and components, first:

• HDMI or AV cable
• SD Card
• micro-USB charger
• a Rasberry Pi
• USB keyboard and mouse
• (optional) a media center remote

Alright once you get all the hardware together we’re ready to start downloading the necessary files. Here is what you’ll need:

• A copy of SDFormatter
• Win32diskimager
• The most recent copy of OpenELEC

Formatting the Memory Card

Once you’ve downloaded the SD Formatter program, install it and start it up. You’ll see an option to choose your device– make sure you have the right card chosen. Next you’ll press ‘format’. You’re now ready for the direct installation of openELEC.

Installing OpenELEC

Remember the Win32 Disk Imager I had you download? Now it’s time to install it and run it. You’ll see an area where it asks for the image file. You’ll want to navigate the folder that you downloaded OpenELEC to.

Once you’ve selected it, press “WRITE”. It will load up and that’s basically it. You now have your SD card ready for the Rasbperry Pi.

Additional Media Files and Add-Ons

This gives you a stock experience of XBMC running through OpenElec. Now it is up to you to expand its capabilities. You can hook the Pi up to your network through Ethernet or a compatible Wi-Fi card to get full access to your media files.

This will also give you access to the “Add-On” option inside of XBMC.

Want to bring your local media files directly to the device? You can add files to the memory card or in my case I brought along a Flash Stick that had extra movies right on it. XBMC easily can connect with external HDD as well. If you want to use the Raspberry Pi as a permanent media center, you’ll probably want to add on a case as well.

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There are many electronic devices that people want, nice smartphones, great tablets, but a small, Android based gaming console that is just $99 and is designed with indie gaming in mind? Surely such a project isn’t going to take off at all… wait, your saying it has? Crazy as it is, Ouya has quickly generated millions of dollars in Kickstarter while forming several high-profile agreements with companies like Square Enix to bring games to the little rubix cube console. Now it seems that the highly popular XBMC media player is going to make it ways to Ouya as well, as the XBMC team has pledged that they plan to make sure that their upcoming Android app is fully capable of running through the Ouya. While the XBMC app probably won’t be ready from “Day 1”, it seems likely that there won’t be too much of a wait before it hits.

Beyond XBMC, another media consumption partnership has been formed with TuneIn, which will bring this popular radio streaming service over to the little console that could. I have admitted more than once that I was initially skeptical that such a box could arrive and actually be worth getting excited about, but boy was I ever wrong. What do you think of the open source-natured gaming console and media device? Plan on getting your hands on one?

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Ever since I modded my original Xbox to run XBMC, I’ve been a pretty big fan of this media player program. Fast-forwarding to today, XBMC has become a very powerful media viewing tool primarily for PCs- well no longer, XBMC for Android is now on its way.

According to the XBMC Team, the Android version has all the features you’d expect to see on the standard desktop version and doesn’t require any special hacks, mods or rooting to work on Android, instead it works just like any other app. Of course its not exactly in a full stable build yet and unfortunately only offers software-based decoding of audio and video for most devices, with the big exception being the Pivos XIOS DS Set-Top Android Box. The XBMC Team has extensively tested and worked with the XIOS DS to ensure great hardware-based decoding, but even for devices that use softtware-based decoding, the XBMC Android experience is actually quite good.

The source code is available for tinkering right now and APKs will soon hit their site for beta testers within a few weeks, though XBMC has no plans to bring their efforts officially to Google Play until the program is further along in development.

If you are looking for a solid media player for your tablet, smartphone or set-top box, XBMC is hard to beat, even if it isn’t quite ready for prime-time just yet. The idea of XBMC coming to Android even brings more usefulness to the recent CM9 port for Nexus Q. Once both of these ports get all their bugs worked out, they could make for a wonderful combination on the Q.

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One useful thing about the Nexus Q though is its inclusion of a USB port, which gives it a bit of extra flexiblity when it comes to hacks. Many in the developer community have had interesting ideas for the Q, but Jason Parker is the first to port a full version of Android to the Nexus Q, using the CyanogenMod 9 Tuna/Maguro build as the base for the job. Right now the port isn’t 100% functional, but WIFI and Bluetooth work just fine at least. For an early build, it’s rather stable but issues with things like sound prevent it from being truly useful in its correct form.

You can rest assured that if Nexus Q already has an early some-what stable build of Android running on it, its only a matter of time until the Q has the full unlocked potential of Android under its belt. While the Q is meant as a sharing device, the power of Android could open it up as much more capable media solution for the living room. Not only could this mean using the Q as a full media device with programs like XBMC for Android, but it means that the Nexus Q could become a great casual gaming device and general living room app system as well.

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