Hi there,

I’m thinking about what kind of opportunities there is for a portable media center you can have with you in the car, train or whatever.

I imagine that the media center would create its own WiFi, so that devices would be able to connect to it and access the media.

I know you could do something with a Raspberry Pi, but how could this work in practice? What would be an easy way to access the media from an iPad fx? What software could be used?

As a bonus, it would be pretty cool if the media center could connect to a hotel WiFi and then create a hotspot from that.

Edit: This would be used when on the move. So you would have the media with you on the media center.

  • barcaxavi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    29 days ago

    Peripherals are one thing, handling concurrent streams, transcoding… is another one.

    So in theory, a Pi can be kept alive with a power bank, but OP is expecting (as I understood) multiple hours of streaming (with “local” only access) , which includes the above tasks for multiple concurrent streams. How big of a power bank we’re talking about and how long will it last?

    • 486@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      28 days ago

      When you use a typical 74 Wh (“20000 mAh”) power bank, you can expect more than 12 hours of runtime, if your average power draw stays at or below 5 W. Of course you aren’t going to do much transcoding with a Pi in any case, but multiple concurrent streams shouldn’t be much of an issue.

      • barcaxavi@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        28 days ago

        Yeah, I was also wondering about the transcoding. And thanks for the power draw comment, great to know. Sounds manageable.

    • Meldrik@lemmy.wtfOPEnglish
      1·
      29 days ago

      It’s true I want hours of playback, but in the car, it’s possible to draw up to 100 watt from the outlet and in trains you have 230 volt outlets. At least in Denmark.

      On a plane, you usually only have USB, but I’m not sure I like the idea of setting up WiFi on a plane 😅