Raspberry Pi + RaspBMC
 

Gonna pick up my Raspberry Pi and install RaspBMC tomorrow. Any tips on setting it up? What do you guys use to access US content (Hulu, NBC, ABC, Fox, Food Network, etc.)? Any must-have addons?

Thanks!

I'm setting mine up right now, I haven't got any real plans fr it yet though.

Pickup? There's a place locally that sells them? I hope you're getting the 512mb ram version.

A guy is selling it off Craigslist for $45 for the 512MB version. Not bad at all.

Check the Raspberry Pi subreddit at raspberry pi - the tiny arm based computer and I use the cheap proxy UnblockUS which I just plug into my router's settings so I don't have to tool with each computer on my home network

So your entire network is running off of UnblockUS? Doesn't that slow down your network?

BTW, how does UnblockUS track paying vs. trial customers? Since all it requires is a change of DNS settings.

cliffs on what this device does?

It's just a DNS service. It doesn't actually use any bandwidth. They keep track of your IP address.

I just watched some Top Gear .mkv's in glorious 1080 without a hitch running XBMC. It'll even let you browse for a video while watching another, but it lags like hell if what you're already watching is HD. Still, perfect for an ultra-portable media box, which is what I wanted.

^ You're not streaming right? Cause all I find are 720p streams. Any must-have addon's?

No, downloaded. I haven't fiddled with it enough to have found any add-ons. I wonder if I can use a powered USB hub to power both my external HDD and the Pi itself?

Correct. Also, if you get bored of US Netflix shows you also can change it to a UK or Mexican IP address as well. Its all included in the $5 a month price and Netflix doesn't know the difference. It'll also work for streaming services like Hulu and Pandora.

Do you guys use your raspberry pie for anything else? I'm thinking of picking one up myself.

its meant for people to try programming...but using it for streaming videos is cool too...

If your an electronics nut like me, it works great as a high end micro controller without the price, you just have to program in your own peripherals as I/O's :)

I programmed it for some bit of fun turning it into convertors :)

Small super budget computer running an arm CPU and Linux.

You're a year late dude.

Running RaspBMC is not bad, if you play LOCAL contentB. However, for most online content, its quite slow, especially when you're using icefilms and 1channel addon's. Slows to the crawl just loading menus.