We want to place a good media center under the TV or mount a mini desktop PC so small that it fits in the palm of your hand "> the cheapest and most compact computer we can use, since it is made only of a card that includes memory and processor, with all the connectors needed to use to connect peripherals and PC elements. Let's find out what the Raspberry Pi is and how we can use it to make a mini PC or a complete media center that fits in the palm of a hand!
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Use the Raspberry Pi as a mini PC or media center for TV
Using the Raspberry, if you follow the basic instructions, is really easy and it only takes a few minutes to put it into operation.
In summary it is a real computer that includes:
- Four USB ports to which we can connect the mouse and, the USB keyboard or an external hard disk
- An SD card slot essential for installing an operating system
- An HDMI port to connect a monitor or TV to it
- A separate RGB Video and Audio port if the HDMI port cannot be used
- The socket for the power supply
- The Ethernet socket for the network cable and connect the Raspebbery to the internet
- Integrated Dual Band WiFi
- Bluetooth
As you can see, it is therefore identical to a laptop or desktop computer that is used at home, only that it is all in miniature.
If interested we can buy it from here -> Raspberry Pi 3b + (37 €).
Small boxes are available for Rasperry Pi in which to place it in order to give it a less rustic appearance, although many could appreciate this design and leave the card exposed for personal tastes.
With the specific case, however, the card is less exposed to dust and damage; looking on the Internet you can find different box ideas for Raspberry Pi 3b and 3b +, the latest models on the market.
The classic box can be viewed from here -> NorthPada Raspberry case (11 €).
Once you have purchased everything you need, all you have to do is connect the Raspberry Pi to the TV with an HDMI cable, connect a mouse and a LAN network cable and start configuring the operating system or the media center downloaded to the SD card (as shown in the section Profiles below).
If the configuration was successful, we can use a real Linux-based operating system as a mini PC or use one of the many media center programs to open photos, videos and music on the TV in a simple and immediate way
Ways to use
The Raspberry Pi can be used without difficulty even by those who are less experienced and know little about operating systems:
- As a real computer
- As a Mediacenter to watch movies on TV, to listen to music and to watch TV online.
1) To use the Raspberry as a computer, in addition to the monitor and mouse, a USB keyboard must also be connected which is not necessary in the MediaCenter option.
A very "user-friendly" Linux system must be installed on the SD card, designed specifically for beginners.
The system is Raspbian, light, to be downloaded on the Raspberry Pi website.
The installation is very simple, it is done from Windows and only requires you to copy the ISO to the SD card from your PC, using a program like Win32diskimager.
After copying the image, insert the card into the Raspberry, plug it into the power and load the system.
When the upload finishes, you can start the Raspbian desktop by writing the word StartX on the command line.
Raspbian works well, it is light and allows you to surf the Internet, listen to music, watch videos, browse images and so on.
2) To use the Raspberry as a Media Center, a special operating system chosen from three alternatives must be installed from a computer and directly into the SD card that will be inserted in the Raspberry:
- OSMC
- Openelec Kodi (no longer supported)
- LibreLec
The oldest of the trio is OpenELEC, an open source operating system, mainly focused on the management of Kodi, a program to make every PC a multimedia player also for TV.
Then came OSMC, which initially had the name RaspBMC and was one of the two operating systems that were offered on the Raspberry Pi when it came out in the first edition.
The youngest of the three is LibreELEC, released only in March 2016, released by a group of former OpenELEC developers who abandoned the project due to the creative difference.
Those who know Kodi can safely use one of the three operating systems without problems, because everything that can be done in Kodi can be done in OpenELEC and OSMC or Librelec.
Librelec is the best choice among the three, because practically identical to Openelec, but with an update program it follows Kodi closely, so every time a new feature appears in Kodi, LibreELEC is quickly updated with the new version.
LibreELEC is also very easy to install thanks to a small automatic software called LibreELEC USB-SD Creator, which can be downloaded from the Librelec download page.
The software needs no installation. just run it, select the type of hardware on which LibreELEC will run (then the Raspberry) and the version, select the SD card or USB drive used.
OSMC can be easily installed automatically thanks to the installer from Windows only to download and launch.
OSMC, although built on a Linux basis like the other two operating systems discussed here, is quite different.
Like the others, it was created to turn a computer into a media center, but was not originally intended to run on a limited type of hardware.
For this reason, it is a bigger operating system that allows not only to use Kodi, but also programs like Plex or other apps created specifically for this operating system.
For Kodi users, however, OSMC may be less immediate to use for how it does things differently.
For the rest they are the same and they can all be considered a light version of Kodi with which to watch videos and listen to music also in streaming.
The best thing about using Kodi or light versions on Raspberry is the ability to open videos and music from your home PC, by sharing folders on the network from your PC.
If in fact the PC and the Raspberry are connected to the internet on the same network (via cable or WiFi), it is possible to open shared folders on Windows from Kodi or similar to access shared contents, also multimedia.
Using the Raspberry Pi as a media center you can install various Kodi add-ons to watch Youtube videos, listen to music and radio streaming and watch online TV channels.
Instead of always using the mouse and keyboard we can also configure a mobile phone as a remote control using the Yatse application, available for download from Android here -> Yatse: Kodi Remote Control .
If instead we use an iPhone we can use the Official Kodi Remote app, downloadable from here -> Official Kodi Remote .
So we can manage it better without mouse and keyboard!
Conclusions
The Raspberry Pi is a full-fledged computer, not very powerful but suitable as a studio mini PC or for multimedia purposes.
The ability to use it as a media center is a great solution for those who want to connect a PC to the TV and watch computer movies directly on the big screen sitting on the sofa.
The Raspberry certainly needs a bit of computer knowledge and a bit of Linux smattering in order to be used at its best, but after a few initial tweaks it will give everyone great satisfaction.
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