XBMC on Raspberry Pi

[Lazybones]

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/571

Not available yet, but getting VERY close. Note this video uses the LARGER per-production board

These pics give you an idea of the size of the production units:
http://www.pyrosoft.co.uk/blog/2012/01/13/raspberry-pi-8-first-photoshoot/

CES announces some nice streaming boxes that are smaller, however remember that these units are open and run Debian or Red Hat linux... Also MythTV and XBMC dev's are already working on them meaning you could end up with a setup MUCH cheaper than the current 99$ streams that has more functions and almost unlimited updates

[Mr. Analog]

One of the worrying things was why they had to do the hardware manufacturing outside the UK; apparently building electronics in the UK is hampered by import taxes. So it's far cheaper to have them build the Raspberry Pi abroad and import the whole thing than importing the components.

There's something fundamentally wrong with that if you ask me...

[Mr. Analog]

Well, it's official now; only H.264 and MPEG-4 will have hardware support.

Two licensed codecs will be provided at launch, MPEG4 and h.264.  Codec licences have quite an impact of the cost of the device which is why there are only two at this stage. There are non-licensed Codecs such at MPEG2, VC1 etc, but for the moment they will not be accelerated by the GPU.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/592

The restriction is mainly licensing.

[Lazybones]

Well, it's official now; only H.264 and MPEG-4 will have hardware support.

Two licensed codecs will be provided at launch, MPEG4 and h.264.  Codec licences have quite an impact of the cost of the device which is why there are only two at this stage. There are non-licensed Codecs such at MPEG2, VC1 etc, but for the moment they will not be accelerated by the GPU.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/592

The restriction is mainly licensing.

I am not sure if that will actually stop projects from being able to access the hardware functions, unless they are burnt out of the chips before shipment.

[Mr. Analog]

Yeah, not sure how they're going to do it. From what I read today all the plumbing will be there, but still, a long way from release yet.