How to convert any old LCD / LED / Plasma TV into a featured SMART TV

Aim of Tutorial: To convert any LCD/ LED / Plasma Television into a smart television with built in multimedia applications using Raspberry Pi.

Required:
1.> An Internet connection and a LAN Cable.
2.> Raspberry Pi Computer and case.
3.> A standard micro USB mobile charger (5V, 700-1000 ma).
4.> At-least a 4GB SD card or micro-SD card with adapter.
5.> USB Card Reader if no laptop.
6.> HDMI Cable

Download:
1.> Win32 Disk Imager application
2.> Raspbmc_latest.torrent or Direct download raspbmc_latest


[PART-1]: Installing Raspbmc onto Raspberry Pi.

1.> Connect the SD card to a computer using a card reader.

2.> Run Win32 Disk Imager as administrator and browse the raspbmc-2013-12-23.img file.

3.> Now select the appropriate removable disk drive letter from the drop down list (be careful) and press the "Write" button.

4.> After the process of writing completes, safely remove the USB card reader and the SD card and plug it in the raspberry Pi.

5.> Connect the LAN, HDMI, USB Keyboard and Mouse to your Raspberry Pi computer, and power up the system.

Note that, you can use TV's own USB port to power up your Raspberry Pi, in case you do not have any USB port, you can use a standard MicroUSB mobile charger to power up your Raspberry Pi.

6.> In the initial setup, you will be greeted with  completing configuration menu from step 1 to 2. your raspberry pi will restart several times to finally show the welcome screen.



7.> Select appropriate language and locale, if you miss out you can change it later from settings menu.

 8. > You can change any settings related to your Video / Audio output from "Settings" menu, also if you need to tweak your raspberry pi's performance, it can be done from additional settings under "Programs" menu. (though its not necessary until you are geek)

9.> The best thing about Raspberry Pi is that it comes with HDMI-CEC technology, which allows you to remote control the Raspbmc operating system and TV with help of your TV remote simultaneously.

[Part-2]: Navigation using the TV Remote / SmartPhone.

1.> The Directional keys can be used to navigate through menus in XBMC
2.> The Exit button can be used to return to the previous menu.
3.> The Play, Pause, Forward, Reverse and stop buttons can be used to control all your media playback.
4.> The Power button will turn off Raspberry Pi and the TV simultaneously.
5.> The volume button can be used to increase the volume of the playing media.

You can refer to my other post where, I have explained how you can use your smartphone as a Wifi Remote for your Raspberry Pi XMBC media center.

How to setup Raspberry Pi computer for Torrent downloading and Network Added Storage.

Aim of tutorial : How to setup Raspberry Pi for downloading Torrents and NAS.

This setup will allow one to access their hard disk drive connected to raspberry pi as a network share in windows or an android phone and also enable raspberry pi to download torrents from the internet and automatically share it on the network.The tutorial is divided into 2 Parts as follows:

1.] Installing Samba server.
2.] Installing the Transmission Torrent Client.

Login to your Raspberry Pi as default user: pi user and password: raspberry
Use "sudo" with every command.

Type the following commands:

[Part 1]: Installation of Samba and Mounting an external USB Hard Disk Drive.

1.> Install SAMBA on Raspberry Pi:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install samba samba-common-bin
sudo cp /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf.copy

2.> Add support for NTFS drives:

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g
sudo fdisk -l

>> Note down the drive name ( my 1TB drive was listed as: /sda1)

3.> Mount the harddrive and setup mount points:

sudo mkdir /media/WD1TB
sudo mount -t auto /dev/sda1 /media/WD1TB


4.> Configuring SAMBA:

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Look for ############Authentication############## line
under which you need to remove the # symbol from the line: 

security = user 

and also copy paste the following lines at the end of the file:

[WD1TB]
comment = Backup Folder
path = /media/WD1TB
valid users = @users
force group = users
create mask = 0660
directory mask = 0771
read only = no

Use "ctrl+x" and then "y" and then "Enter" keys to Save and close the configuration file.

5.> Save and restart SAMBA service:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

6.> Add Unix users:

sudo useradd softwareking -m -G users
sudo passwd softwareking

Enter the password twice to confirm.(Entered password will not be shown)

7.> Add SAMBA Users:

sudo smbpasswd -a softwareking

Enter the password twice to confirm.(Entered password will not be shown)

8.> Setup hard disk to mount automatically even if Raspberry Pi restarts:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

Enter the following line in the last and Save:

/dev/sda1 /media/WD1TB auto noatime 0 0

9.> Restart Raspberry pi:
      
sudo shutdown -r

By entering the samba user id and password in windows network, you should now be able to access your hard drive connected to raspberry Pi.
[PART 2]: Installation of Transmission torrent client and configuration

10.> Installing Transmission Torrent downloader:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install transmission transmission-daemon transmission-cli

11.> Configuring Transmission:

sudo service transmission-daemon stop
sudo nano /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json

Edit the following lines to your needs:

“rpc-enabled”: true,
“rpc-password”: “qwerty”,
“rpc-port”: “9091”,
“rpc-username”: “softwareking”,
"download-dir”: “/media/WD1TB/Torrent_Downloads”,
”incomplete-dir”: “/media/WD1TB/Torrent_Downloads”,
”incomplete-dir-enabled”: true,

Use "ctrl+x" and then "y" and then "Enter" keys to Save and close the configuration file.

12.> Creating a Downloads directory for Transmission:

cd /media/WD1TB
sudo mkdir Torrent_Downloads

13. > Start the Transmission daemon service:

sudo service transmission-daemon start

Test if the port 9091 is open:
sudo netstat -antup | grep 9091

14.> Adding Transmission to start-up automatically when raspberry pi starts:

sudo apt-get install chkconfig
sudo chkconfig --add transmission-daemon
sudo /sbin/chkconfig --levels 2345 transmission-daemon on

Restart Raspberry Pi.

sudo shutdown -r

15.> Accessing Transmission Webpage:

From any device connected to your same network,
open a browser and type:

http://192.168.2.100:9091

This will open Transmission Web-page where you can add, control and monitor your torrents.
Click on the wrench Icon at the bottom to open settings, Network and edit the port to 9092, save.

16.> Configuring Wifi-Router to forward ports for Transmission torrent downloader.

Check how to forward ports in wifi router here: Port Fowarding

Port forward ports 9091, 9092 for RPC(webserver) and Torrent respectively.

Restart the router if necessary and Raspberry Pi

After the download completes, they will automatically show up in the Network share we created in Part-1 of the tutorial.