Pi as media player for CRT TV: which distro?

[tawalker]

Now that the Model B is shipping with 512MB RAM, I'm thinking about ordering a second Pi... which leaves me wondering what I would do with my existing one

My "front-runner" idea at the moment, would be to repurpose the "old" Pi as a media player for our old Toshiba CRT TV in the lounge. We've not used the set much for a while, and I think the Pi has the potential to bring it back to "life".

Now, obviously this old TV isn't HD, and "only" offers SCART and component video inputs. Whilst the Pi has the latter (and I could use either the TV's component input, or a component-SCART adapter), I was wondering if anyone could recommend which "media centre" distribution - Raspbmc, OpenELEC, etc. - might work best with a non-HD(MI) setup like this? I've had a quick trawl through the forum archives, but couldn't find much related to media-centre/CRT TV use (apologies if I needed to look for longer ).

Many thanks!

[excollier]

The RPi has composite output, not component.
Composite video = 1 yellow plug
Component = 1 red, 1 green, 1 blue plug
you can feed the composite plus (3.5mm audio jack - stereo rca) into a rca/ scart adaptor, easily available

[tawalker]

The RPi has composite output, not component.
Composite video = 1 yellow plug
Component = 1 red, 1 green, 1 blue plug
you can feed the composite plus (3.5mm audio jack - stereo rca) into a rca/ scart adaptor, easily available

Thanks for clarifying that - I didn't actually know there was a difference in the terminology, but now you explain it, it makes sense (composite = all colour signals together)

I have actually used that output on the Pi before, though - it works on the CRT TV. My actual question was whether Raspbmc or OpenELEC (or another "media centre" distro?) would work most "comfortably" with a non-HD TV over a component video link, or does it not make much difference in practice?

Thanks again

[masterluke]

All of the above should work pretty well. You may need to make an edit to config.txt to set to PAL or NTSC depending on the formats your tv supports. You will also want to use the video calibration applet as CRT tv's can overscan quite a bit by default.

Personally in on openelec but I also like xbian.

[anotherbloke]

I have used a Pi on an old style TV and it worked ok as a media center. I use it to play videos for my child.

[drgeoff]

.... would work most "comfortably" with a non-HD TV over a component video link ...

Got 'component' on the brain, haven't you?