Media Centre Raspberry Pi B - PcDuino 3B - Raspberry Pi 2, Raspberry Pi 3B - My experience.

Since the Christmas Season and the receiving of gifts, I've had the chance to compare the PCDuino v3b with the old Raspberry Pi B (the one with only 2 USB ports - not the B+) and also with the Raspberry Pi 2 B.  The results were interesting.

The PC Duino 3B played all HD mp4 Video, even 4k files of 3GB in size perferctly with the exception that the audio was almost always out of sync.  Which is not ideal in a multimedia centre for example.

When I was given the Raspberry Pi, the model B I had no intention of using it as a computer, so I installed OpenElec and checked it as a Multimedia Centre.  It worked perfectly!  Did everything I could want in multimedia without a glitch,

The Raspberry Pi 2B on the other hand was completely incapable of playing the same 3GB file in KODI,  So I tried installing SMplayer and VLC, which also failed.  Not only that, but they failed to allow Analogue Audio,  I installed OpenElec (the special Pi 2 version) and had similar problems.  The file would play for a while, then stop and start, then play a while and so on until after a while it simply locked solid. I was beginning to think the mp4 file might be corrupt, but I checked it on a couple of other devices and it was fine.

Back to the old model Raspberry Pi with the same video, and again it played perfectly.

So as a Media Centre, both the PCDuino 3B and the Raspberry Pi 2B have serious limits.
And as a Media Centre, the old Raspberry Pi B works beautifully.

I through the extra CPU power and memory of the PCDuino would make it great for the job, but it appears the lack of suitable media CODECS is its downfall.

And the QUAD core processor of the Raspberry Pi with double the RAM of the older Pi B should have put it head and shoulders above the rest - but it failed miserably.

So the Old Pi model B, which seems to be no longer available is back to performing my Media tasks.  There is however a Pi model B+ available that seems to have the same specs, but with the addition of an extra two USB ports.  With any luck the 4 port model should perform just as smoothly as the 2 port model.

EDIT !!
Somebody emailed a question about whether the SD cards were different and could be affecting the playback performance.
ALL the SD cards were Sandisk ULTRA microSD 16GB.  On the Pi B  the card was in the supplied standard size adapter.

All systems were initially tested with the OS and the players, including KODI or XBMC (on the PCDuino) at their standard settings with the exception that Audio was swapped to Analogue output.

Only the Pi B played the 3GB HD mp4 at standard settings.
Even tweaking settings including scripts for Mplayer failed to fix the other systems.

UPDATE !!

The Raspberry Pi 3B does everything the Pi 2 did, but a hell of a lot faster.  Benchmarks aside, real world programs are running on the Pi 3B at about the same speeds as my AMD E-350 Dual Core Compaq, and some things are actually happening faster in side by side speed tests.

I even used the Raspberry Pi 3B and OpenShot to add 3 mp3 files and some effects to an AVI video, then convert it to an mp4.  It took 12 minutes to process a 3.5 minute video.  Not much different from the AMD desktop.  However, with only 1GB RAM and no swap file, I can't see myself using the Pi for too many really big video editing jobs.  It was just interesting to time it compare with my 4yo desktop computer that I use for the same work.

We browsing is much faster on the Raspberry Pi 3 than on the Desktop computer, bu that is the result of using kweb as the browser on the Pi.  kweb also streams YouTube video smoothly, where the AMD desktop computer is always stopping and starting the video stream.

On the desktop I have to download a YouTube video and watch it in a media player.  On the Raspberry Pi I simply open YouTube in kweb, and watch it on a 50 inch TV.  The Raspberry Pi 3B has to be the cheapest way ever to get a really smart, smart TV!

pcDuino v3B no audio from some programs - by Ross Devitt

After using sudo board-config.sh to update my pcDuino v3B various things stopped working and I have written about some of them in the previous posts.  One ting I did not check before the upgrade though, was whether I had sound in my browser and things like smplayer and vlc.  XBMC worked and for my original purpose that was all I was interested in.

But the more I got involved in this magic little computer, the more I wanted to try other things.  And during that process I discovered the ONLY thing that had sound was XBMC.  So I did a little snooping.  And found a simple solution - for me at least.

Now at the time i didn't write down everything I did.  It was after midnight and I was exhausted.  But I know I did: 

sudo apt-get install pavucontrol 

I can;t remember if that installed all the other pulse audio stuff or if i had to also do:

 sudo apt-get install pulseaudio

But if you have this problem, try the first.  If it still doesn;t allow you to set up audio, try the second as well.

After I did this i could adjust sound settings from the volume icon on the panel.  Then I had ausio output in everything inclusing YouTube videos!

Cheers,

RossD

PCDUINO v3B XBMC won;t play mpg and mpeg videos - by Ross Devitt

The longer I play with the PCDUINO v3B, the more things I find that are wrong with it.  but so far,with the exception of that problem creating a bootable, usable 32GB micro SD card, the other problems seem to have solutions.

One annoying thing that I discovered when I got my 1 Terror Bite portable USB 3.0 hard drives drives working in the pcDuino 3B was that while mp4 files played great, I have a heap of old mpg and mpeg videos that would not work.  Generally as XBMC was working through a playlist as soon as it encountered an mpeg or mpg extension, it simply shut down and dropped to the desktop.

I can't guarantee this solution this will fix it for everyone, but it worked for me.

Open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install mplayer2


Then hit enter and wait.  You might have to hit enter again if it asks you for a Y/n choice.

Next do:

sudo apt-get install libavcodec-extra-53 

And hit enter again.

It was that simple.  As soon as I opened XBMC again it played all my mp4 and mpg and mpeg videos.  I haven't checked to see if avi files are still playing.  I must admit i was so excited I forgot.

Anyway, just another tip for pcDuino v3B users.  Hope it helps.

Cheers,

RossD.

pcDuino How to use pcDuino with a 1TB USB hard drive - by Ross Devitt

The pcDuino is a great device and can make a fantastic entertainment centre, but it has one major failing.  Although it is just the richt size to fit in an enclosure with a USB hard drive, it needs a uSB hub in the only USB port to run things like a mouse and keyboard or the wireless dongle for a wireless all in one keyboard like the Logitech k400.

This means that you can only run a USB hard drive if you install a powered USB hub.  And that means you need to have access to power for that hub.  I searched for a simple way to use power from the SATA drive connector to power a USB hub, and I searched for a simple adapter from the on board SATA to USB female.  Neither seems possible.

But there is a solution and it is relatively easy.

By following the instructions here:  http://learn.linksprite.com/pcduino/usb-development/turn-usb-otg-port-into-an-extra-usb-host-pcduino3/  very carefully, you can use the OTG port as an extra USB port for connecting the USB hub and wireless dongle.

And here is the great news!   Once that was enabled, I could run up a 1 Terabyte portable USB drive (NOT the desktop type) and access all my movies and music etc on it.  It plays 1.5GB 1080p videos without hesitation in XBMC.  And it allows me to select and play content from thumb drives connected to the USB hub in the OTG port just as easily.

This means that if I want to I can now have a 1TB USB drive attached to the bottom of the pcDuino case and use it as a complete self containeed Multimedia Centre.  Stacking that combo on top of my PowerBank should make the thing completely portable. 

It also means I might be able to install the OS to a partioned portable hard drive with a bit of work.  Al lI need is the right kernel and I might be able to get Elementary or Lubuuntu running completely on a nice big drive.

But those are experiments still in the plannign stage.  For now at least I have decent functionality.

Cheers - RossD

pcDuino3 - using 32GB SD Card as main drive - by Ross Devitt

The pcDuino3B has 1GB Flash memory and 4GB RAM.  With the pcDuino's version of lubuntu installed there's about 1.5GB of free spance for the home partition for user files.  This rapidly shrinks as it fills up with cacheed stuff, especially if you run a browser.

Luckily it is easy to write a shell script to clear the cache regularly and I am playing around with ways to do this at boot.  In the mean time it is a nuisance that such a great and versatile little computer is hamstrung by this lack of usable space.

Ok, first the good news!  According to these instructions on the Linksprite website it is possible to expand the usefuless of the pcDuino3 by cloning the OS to a 32GB micro SD card.

http://learn.linksprite.com/pcduino/quick-start/pcduino3/use-32gb-sd-card-with-pcduino3/

Now the bad news.

It is bullshit.  It might work for some people, but it doesn't work.

UPDATE - 

I'll put any updates here close to the top of the post so they can be found easily.  
I have jsut tried a third method to create a bootable 32GB microSD.  I used a utility called unetbootin, which usually works with almost anything.  It found the pcDuino .img file, and it even wrote it to the card.  But no way was it interested in booting.

Ok, back to the original post:
 
By following the steps exactly as written, I managed to end up with a 32GB microSD card with a dead partiton table.  It would not show up on any computer.  So I tried a 16GB card and ended up with a dead microSD card.  After that I wondered if I had a couple of dud cards, so I bought a brand new Sandisk Ultra microSD card and tried that.

Sure enough after carefully following the steps exactly I had another dead card.  Luckily Gparted on my Linux computer enabled me to rebuild the cards, Testing each one as I finished to make sure I could write a file to it and delete the file again.

Tried the board-config.sh thing again and managed to get one card that went through the motions of booting, but locked in a loop that asked for a sh file it expected to find on a USB disk. However reading the file told me it would overwrite the on-board nand and that is not somethign I wasnte to do accidentally.

I found another site that offered a more traditional way to burn a bootable 32GB micro SD using the following method.

sudo dd if=/home/user/file.img of=/dev/sdX bs=1M
    
     FIRST - UNMOUNT sdb1
    
     umount /dev/sdb1
    
     THEN - write the image
    
Wonderful!  I now had about 8MB of my 32GB disk used.  But still not bootable.

A bit of googling suggests this is a pretty common problem and nobody has devised a solution to it yet.  My guess is that there is somethign missing from the instructions at Linksprite.com.

My advice - forget about trying to use a 32GB card if it doesn;t work the first time and if you are worried aboout destroying partitions on the microSD cards.




However all is not lost.  Although I was not able to fix the lack of storage, I was able to delete some cache files and fix one other problem - which will be addressed in the following post.

And I am still trying to find a solution to the bootable 32GB micro SD problem.  If I could only find the thing as an iso instead of an img file.

Cheers,  RossD.

pcDuino ethernet not working - by Ross Devitt

There's problem on the pcDuino v3B that occurs if you update or upgrade the Ubuntu operating system.  WiFi networking still works, but the wired ethernet (eth0) is disabled..   It seems to be a Ubuntu problem, not a pcDuino problem as it has only been happening to people since recent Ubuntu updates and it seems to have happened to various distros.

I believe there is a way to correct it by editing a system file, but I'm not sure I have the patience at the moment to go looking for it.  So here's a quick fix that worked for me. 

Create a file in your Desktop folder and call it something like  Start-Ethernet   and copy the following 2 lines into it.

!#/bin/bash
sudo killall -9 NetworkManager

Then make the file executable (you can do this by right clicking the file in File Manager then choosing Properties > Permissions and click in the check box for Make Executable)

Then when you click the file on the desktop, it will stop your network, then restart it.  Instead of teh WiFi symbol on the right end of the panel, you will see two arrows, one up - one down.  This is the icon to show Wired Ethernet is connected.

It is probably not the correct way to fix the problem, but it is simple, and it works.

When you reboot the pcDuino though, you will be back to Wireless Networking.  Simply click the file again and wait until it swaps over to Wired Ethernet.

Obviously, if you don;t have a network cable plugged in you can ignore this.  But if you don;t have a WiFi router and have to rely on cables, this might just help you.