Raspberry Pi Media Center Kit

Support Raspberry Pi
1

Hi,

I have some questions about the Raspberry Pi Media Center Kit.

  1. Will the power supply work in Australia?

  2. Is it possible to get LibreELEC or NOOBS preinstalled on the microSD card instead of OpenELEC?

  3. Is it possible to get a 32GB microSD card instead of a 16GB microSD card?

  4. What is the quality of the microSD card? Is it class 10?

2

Hi Ahmes,

  1. Yep, it’s a certified Australian power supply.
  2. Unfortunately it’s not with a media centre kit, it sounds like you’re after our Pi Starter kit instead which comes with NOOBS, however, you can easily put NOOBS on there yourself.
  3. We only stock the 16GB cards at this point.
  4. Yep, they’re high quality, class 10 cards.
3

Hi,

Is it possible to have LibreELEC preinstalled on the microSD card instead of OpenELEC? I read that LibreELEC is better than OpenELEC and most of the OpenELEC developers moved to LibreELEC.

Also on the Raspberry Pi is overscan turned off? I would prefer not having to turn it off myself. If that isn’t possible how easy is it to turn off overscan myself?

4

Hi @Ahmes43918,
Thanks for the heads-up about LibreELEC - we might give that a look.
Regarding pre-flashing the SD card goes, we’re only outfitted to supply OpenELEC cards at the moment. If you find yourself wanting to clean and re-flash an SD card I’ve documented the cleaning process here (windows)

As far as overscan, I couldn’t speak for LibreELEC but OpenELEC does not have overscan enabled - On an HDMI monitor or TV the picture fills the whole screen. It stands to reason Libre, or any other media-centre OS would be the same.

5

Hi,

How easy is it to enter the licence keys and enable MPEG-2 and VC-1 hardware decoding?

6

It’s super easy! The process for OpenELEC is documented here.

7

Hi,

Thank you for all the information.

Would the Wifi built into the Raspberry Pi 3 be fast enough to watch YouTube videos at at least 720p HD or should I get a USB wifi dongle?

8

Hi,

This webpage https://core-electronics.com.au/tutorials/raspberry-pi-kodi-media-centre.html says the Wi-Fi built into the Pi 3 can struggle with streaming HD video and that a USB Wi-Fi dongle will be faster.

Do you sell USB Wi-Fi dongles for Raspberry Pi 3?

9

Try this.

10

$20 is a bit expensive. Do you have anything cheaper?

11

Hi Ahmes,

That’s the best option if you’re after a WiFi dongle for your Pi. We don’t have a cheaper option for USB dongles that will offer better performance than the built in Wi-Fi.

12

Ok. Thank you anyway. I’ll consider buying the Wi-Fi dongle.

Also is it alright to power my Raspberry Pi from one of my TV’s USB ports?

13

I wouldn’t think so, unless it can deliver at least 1Amp (I’m fairly sure it would only be 500mA).

14

Ok. Do I need a powered USB hub to connect an external hard drive to my Raspberry Pi? Over here Recommended USB hub for Raspberry Pi you say it should be okay without.

15

That’s assuming you’re powering your Pi with an adequate power supply. The best option, to avoid any confusion is to just get the official Pi Power Supply and run from there.

16

Is that the power supply that comes with the Raspberry Pi Media Center Kit?

And if I get that power supply can I connect an external hard drive to one of my Raspberry Pi’s USB ports without needing a powered USB hub?

Is there a limit to the number of external hard drives I can connect at the same time to the Raspberry Pi?

And will the Raspberry Pi’s USB port(s) be powerful enough to power the external hard drive(s)?

17

Yep that’s the one. It really just depends. For things like this, there’s no hard and fast answer. You should be ok with it, but they could draw too much power, or data rates could suffer. The best way to find out is to try.

18

Is there any chance of losing data on an external hard drive? I would rather buy a powered USB hub than risk losing any data.

19

You shouldn’t lose data, no.

20

Thank you for the information. I think I may buy the Raspberry Pi Media Center Kit this weekend. I still haven’t decided if I’ll use OpenELEC or LibreELEC.