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[zenpmd]

I have a large library, which is the raspberry would read over the network (storage elsewhere). I also want to send big BR rips across the network (30Gb plus). Can it handle it?

[Arindelle]

I have a large library, which is the raspberry would read over the network (storage elsewhere). I also want to send big BR rips across the network (30Gb plus). Can it handle it?

depends on what you mean by handle it. As a controller, sure. As the media server, probably be a bit slow, but I know it works fine for some  people here (fast NAS/fast wired network?)

As a renderer (player) for 30gb bluray content on the otherhand?  on Red October Standard, it should be ok. On Red October HQ playback, doubtful. For MadVR, even on low settings I'd say no way. Basically for HQ playback you'll need a recent (high numbered version) of intel HDgraphics which the Rasberry won't have and for MadVR ultimate settings even that is probably not enough and you'd need a more powerful discrete GPU

[zenpmd]

THanks Arindelle

To be clear, all I would want the ii doing is playing back content. I dont think that makes it a media server? (correct me if I am misunderstanding).

So my Raspberry would be fed with an ethernet cable, from which it would read BR rips and flacs across the network using J river. Flacs are CD quality flacs. And it would then be fed into my USB dac (I assume raspberry has USB out)

Can it do that?

[mwillems]

As a renderer (player) for 30gb bluray content on the otherhand?  on Red October Standard, it should be ok. On Red October HQ playback, doubtful. For MadVR, even on low settings I'd say no way. Basically for HQ playback you'll need a recent (high numbered version) of intel HDgraphics which the Rasberry won't have and for MadVR ultimate settings even that is probably not enough and you'd need a more powerful discrete GPU

THanks Arindelle

To be clear, all I would want the ii doing is playing back content. I dont think that makes it a media server? (correct me if I am misunderstanding).

So my Raspberry would be fed with an ethernet cable, from which it would read BR rips and flacs across the network using J river. Flacs are CD quality flacs. And it would then be fed into my USB dac (I assume raspberry has USB out)

Can it do that?

Video is not supported on the ARM platform (which the Pi is) right now at all; I believe it could theoretically serve video media (I haven't tested), but video playback on the Pi is 100% unsupported right now.  So those blu ray rips are off the table for the moment (unless they're audio rips).

Also the RPi's ethernet interface is 1) nominally only a 100Mb connection and 2) shares the USB2 bus so in practice can't really far exceed 40 or 50Mb on its best day (and because of other bottlenecks can be even slower at times).  So even if video were supported, you might run into issues trying to stream high bandwidth files to it (depending on other bottlenecks in your network).

JRiver on the Pi makes a very capable networked music renderer (I'm listening to FLACs on one right now); it makes a middling media server (because of bandwidth and transcoding limitations), but for video it's a non-starter at the moment.

[kstuart]

JRiver on the Pi makes a very capable networked music renderer (I'm listening to FLACs on one right now)

This use of the word "renderer" is a little obscure, can you clarify ?  Thanks.

(All I find on references is:

4. Computers To convert (graphics) from a file into visual form, as on a video display.

)

[JimH]

A renderer is a playback destination in DLNA/UPnP terminology.

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/DLNA

[Arindelle]

renderer= "player" for audio is the closest. As the word player doesn't work for all media eg you don't play images.

so you have renderer, controller (or control point), and media server -- one machine can do all three, two or just one depending on the confg

edit  oops Jim you are fast 

2nd edit -- you know thats the first time I saw "player being a separate category like in the wiki article Jim just linked to ... so maybe my simplistic definition is off I guess

[mwillems]

This use of the word "renderer" is a little obscure, can you clarify ?  Thanks.

(All I find on references is:)

I meant renderer as in DLNA renderer (one of the media network settings in JRiver), but it works nicely as a player for local files too.  

The bottom line is that a pi will play music nicely if no transcoding or resampling is involved.  It can handle light transcoding or resampling, but if you push it, it gets iffy (i.e. I wouldn't count on using one to transcode DSD).  But for playing files in their original format, with little or no DSP they're really quite solid little devices.  A Pi 2 at stock speeds has a JRMark in the 400's, but that can be pushed up into the 500's with overclocking: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=54396.msg658407#msg658407

I use one in my office with a USB hard drive and USB DAC attached (I control the whole thing with JRemote on my phone) and it works great.  I have two at home that I use as network players/library clients meaning that they're hooked up to DACs, but have no storage attached. They are clients of my main server MC instance, and I control them through JRemote as well, and they also work nicely (once some configuration hiccups were worked out).  In both cases this is with a 50k+ file music collection.

I'm currently working on a pi-powered "tablet" that's at the proof of concept stage.  It works as an MC player with touch controls right on the device, I should have a thread up about that soon. 

For all of the ins and outs of configuration see my detailed how-to guide on the Linux board:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=99370.0

Some detailed performance measurements:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=97100.0

Some details and pictures of my office build:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=96133.0

[kstuart]

Very cool.

Since I have yet to need to implement DLNA, I am not very conversant with it.

Mysterious that they chose to use the word "server" but then used the word "renderer" instead of "client" (when "render" is still very actively associated with graphics).

[JimH]

It isn't really a client.  It is a display/player.

Terminology is often ugly.  What is TCP/IP, for example?  Eventually, we get over it.

[mwillems]

Since I have yet to need to implement DLNA, I am not very conversant with it.

It becomes very useful when you have a number of satellite systems and want to control them all from one place.  I don't use the DLNA server functionality at all because MC's library server is much more robust, but the DLNA controller/renderer interface is the best (and maybe only) way to control playback on three or four MC instances from one master instance (tremote only allows control of two instances at once).