Setting your Raspberry Pi up as a Media Server

So I've given up on getting BSP running on my RPi at the moment and instead I went about setting up my Raspberry Pi as a media server. And I've installed Raspbmc based on the xbmc (xbox media center) and it is friggin' awesome. All my videos stream - at a better quality than my PS3 media server and with very little buffering or lag. Not only that but it's got iPlayer too (after a bit of effort). I go through and explain how to get Raspbmc up and running, how to connect a network hard drive with your media, and how to get iPlayer up and running.

1. Download the Raspbmc installer for your Mac here http://www.raspbmc.com/download/ Follow the instructions here http://www.raspbmc.com/wiki/user/os-x-linux-installation/ to install it on a SD Card - note that you need an SD Card dedicated to running your Raspbmc.
2. Once you've downloaded the installer and run it, it will put the appropriate content on your SD Card, say no to installed to a usb jump drive.
3. Now you are ready to put it in your RPi
4. So put it in your RPi and boot it up, it usually takes 20 minutes plus to go through the whole installation routine, but it should go through without any issues - make a coffee - and then reboot a few times. I got a couple of warnings / error messages, but it all went through fine
5. Then it'll be up and running.

Linking to your media

1. To do this go under video, and go to files.
2. Go to "Add Videos"
3. When the Add videos dialog appears, go to "browse"
4. For me it involved selecting the "Windows network (SMB)" then choose MSHOME, choose the computer, disk and sub-folder
5. Choose a name for it (type it in), and choose okay
6. Choose that the directory contains Movies - to choose the movie scraper
7. Turn on "Movies are in separate folders that match the movie title" and "Scan recursively"
8. Choose okay
9. Choose "Do you want to refresh info for all items within this path" say yes
10. Let in scan the folders
11. Now go home
12. Now to play movies go within Videos and files and choose the movie of your choice.

Installing iPlayer.

1. Download the iPlayer plugin here; http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-iplayerv2/downloads/list
2. Place the zip on your media server / hard drive where you are getting the content.
3. Go to System Settings, then Add-ons, then choose "install from zip file"
4. Then navigate to the file, and choose for it to install
5. Once installed you've find it under Videos, then add ons