Your Raspberry Pi Projects

PhireSide said:
I have an old HP MicroServer N40L which is definitely not strong enough for transcoding either but I do have a GT710 that I can pop in there and configure that as the transcoding hardware if I wanted.

I direct stream to my Ematic TV box which seems to handle up to 4k content just fine without transcoding.

The Pi is a nice thing to play around with though, and they are immensely useful. I have a Pi 3B that I have a few services on that I manage with Docker. Currently, it hosts my Heimdall application dashboard, Pihole, a VPN server and a CUPS server but prior to the NAS I also had Jackett, Transmission, Lidarr, Radarr, Sonarr, my Unifi Controller, Smokeping and Plex running off a Pi4B and it had room for more services.

I'd maybe look at getting a Lenovo Tiny to use as a Plex server, as they have Intel CPUs that support transcoding with Intel QuickSync (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video) and there is a nice diagram explaining what chipset generation you would need for the codec you use.

You can also look at an Intel NUC with the 8th or 10th gen CPUs installed. I had one with an Intel 8109u and it was utterly brilliant for the price I paid
Click to expand...
Well the first question is, do you really need transcoding? Unless you're using a pi 3 as a client / media player, anything else you could plug into your network should be fast enough to play most media.

If you definitely want to transcode then maybe something from Odroid? Should still be cheaper than the likes of a NUC, and much more power than a Pi.
Eg. https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-hc2-home-cloud-two/
(I think delivery used to be around $20 but I haven't checked recently. That's standard for most delivery to SA tho).

This one even has 2x SATA onboard.

ODROID-HC4 – ODROID

www.hardkernel.com www.hardkernel.com
 
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ISP cash cow said:
has anybody got experience with using the rasberry pi as a plex server?

I recently bought a rasberry pi 4 (8GB) to use as my entertainment hub for plex server (with my external 4Tb drive plugged into it).

I got it working but it constantly buffers and freezes and sometimes it just quits the application. I run mostly HD movies and series and so I am not sure if it may be because the HD stream is too much for the pi.

I am thinking about getting a proper NAS now but before I do, I just wanted to know if maybe there was something that I could do to run plex on my PI
Click to expand...
I have Serviio running and it works 100%

Not a fan of Plex
 
Eric said:
Just got my Pi 4 8Gb and intend to run Android 10 for a media center / gaming device. Anyone tested Android TV lately? What are the pros and cons of regular Android vs Android TV?
Click to expand...
Why Android exactly? OpenElec and other such distros work fine for media.

Not sure about games though, didn't realise that there was anything appealing available to run on Android for RasPi.
 
Eric said:
Hmm... so Konstakang's LineageOS seems to be lacking HDMI sound - you have to use the analogue jack output... that sucks.
OK, *EDIT* sound does appear to be OK on HDMI now and hardware acceleration is there for gaming... nice.
It does, however, use software acceleration for video playback.

konstakang.com

LineageOS 17.1 (Android 10)

for Raspberry Pi 4
konstakang.com konstakang.com

and Android TV version:
konstakang.com

LineageOS 17.1 Android TV (Android 10)

for Raspberry Pi 4
konstakang.com konstakang.com
Click to expand...
I’m running this at the moment, works pretty well. The HDMI audio thing also screwed me around. I ended up using the GPIO pins to increase the volume as it’s at minimum by default.
 
TIL you can get female no-solder headers for the Pi Zero W. That might work better for sensor stuff than "wasting" an expensive pi4 on it
 
Can some recommend a good battery/powerbank/UPS for the pi4?
i had it connected to my gizzu usb port but i dont think it was getting enough power, it was working, but performance was very bad. looking for something to run few 3-4 hours to run plex and home assistant

also, is there a way to check if the pi is getting enough power?
in the past i used an OS that showed that (i think it was dietpi)
 
bar1 said:
Can some recommend a good battery/powerbank/UPS for the pi4?
i had it connected to my gizzu usb port but i dont think it was getting enough power, it was working, but performance was very bad. looking for something to run few 3-4 hours to run plex and home assistant

also, is there a way to check if the pi is getting enough power?
in the past i used an OS that showed that (i think it was dietpi)
Click to expand...

Can't recommend a specific model of UPS at the moment, but one of the Romoss powerbanks should work, I think the feature is called passthrough charging where you can have the powerbank connected to its own power source, and powering the Pi at the same time. You may have to do a bit of homework to figure out how big a powerbank you'd need, I'd reckon anything with at least 4 cells should work.

Regarding the power consumption, Raspbian puts a little lightning bolt in the corner of the screen if you're underpowered, not very useful on a headless server but you can get access to the info on the command line:
github.com

documentation/vcgencmd.md at master · raspberrypi/documentation

Official documentation for the Raspberry Pi. Contribute to raspberrypi/documentation development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com

Not sure if it's available on other distros, but it works on my pi. Was useful for me in figuring out that ****ty mico-usb cables don't carry enough current for the pi to run stably.
 
bar1 said:
Can some recommend a good battery/powerbank/UPS for the pi4?
Click to expand...
Probably something with a power delivery port which will be expensive. 3-4 hours you'd be looking at a fairly chunky one anyway

UPS...anything should do basically since the power supply will filter the quality of the juice in a way
newby_investor said:
Was useful for me in figuring out that ****ty mico-usb cables don't carry enough current for the pi to run stably.
Click to expand...
It can...just super fussy about the cables. About half the ones I had around were no good...with no obvious pattern in sight. Powering it over GPIO works too though
 
what case are you guys using with your pi 4?
I installed dietpi, and getting this : WARNING: 71'C : 159'F (Reducing the life of your device)

preferably not from the pishop (they are awesome but delivery is pricey)
 
bar1 said:
what case are you guys using with your pi 4?
I installed dietpi, and getting this : WARNING: 71'C : 159'F (Reducing the life of your device)

preferably not from the pishop (they are awesome but delivery is pricey)
Click to expand...
argon neo one from pishop. check the reviews, great thermals for passive cooling.
 
Replaced the crappy sticky pads on those small heatsinks with a thermal adhesive.

...meh. About 3 degree difference
 
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