[Hedda]

Slice (by FiveNinjas), is as far as I can tell the first announced commercial media player based on the newly released Raspberry Pi Compute Module is now holding a Kickstarter campaign
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fiv...r-and-more
http://fiveninjas.com/#press

They also have an offer for you to just get the Remote Control for only £15 including worldwide shipping, or two remotes for £25

'Remote Control' - Be one of the first to get our custom 2.4GHz wireless remote. This remote is great for any XBMC install with a USB port. We'll also include an HD Slice wallpaper, regular updates and Slice Mp3. Free worldwide shipping

As far as I know this might even be the first commercial media player made for retail based on the Raspberry Pi Compute Module(?)

More information on Raspberry Pi Compute Module:
http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/04/09/r...on-module/

Their Kickstarter campaign have already picked up by the media and looks to be doing very well so far
http://www.raspberrypi.org/slice-a-media...te-module/
http://gadgetshow.channel5.com/gadget-sh...-tv-beater
http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/awesome-sli...2-08-2014/
http://www.t3.com/news/slice-is-a-raspbe...dia-player
http://www.techradar.com/news/video/home...ce-1260998
http://liliputing.com/2014/08/slice-simp...nding.html
http://linuxgizmos.com/raspberry-pi-base...ard-drive/


Other than using the far less powerful Raspberry Pi Compute Module the Slice concept of an customized XBMC / Kobi based media player looks to be targeting the same market audience as the very similarEzeeCube, which by the way was successfully with its own campaign on Indiegogo
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ezeec...-to-extend

[voip-ninja]

It's an interesting idea, but it is catered towards a very narrow demographic - people who want to scrape their XBMC library onto the "slice" for portability and travel....

The problem is that Rasp Pi is a bit slow ... and for the price of a full machine (including hard drive) users aren't too far away from the price of a much more powerful Chromebox or NUC.

[MrCrispy]

Local media makes this very limiting. And are they going to change their website and project name to replace XBMC with Kodi? Or will the rest of the world continue to call it XBMC.

[stuCONNERS]

I like how the hard drive is going to pump heat straight onto the pcb. What a top design, Especially the lack of air vents.

[calev]

I'm worried about the overclock ability of this box. The raspberry pi is much more usable at 1gz than the stock 700mhz. For me the pi is only worth it if you can overclock it. Assuming you can do that I would get this. Not sure if this thing is going to be sold in the states.

[micware]

Some where I read that they will deliver the Slice mildly overclocked.
2 of the FiveNinjas work for Raspberry Pi if I’m correct.
Maybe they can supply better software (drivers) for the PI?

[Ned Scott]

For the price, I'll pass, but it's really neat to see them use the Compute Module like this. Hopefully that kind of usage increases and we'll see something either more affordable or with functionality that justifies the additional cost.

[MediaPi]

I like how the hard drive is going to pump heat straight onto the pcb. What a top design, Especially the lack of air vents.

2 out of the five guys are not just part of the Raspberry Pi team they are

James Adams - Director of Hardware Engineering, Raspberry Pi

James has spent more than 10 years doing electronic product design and chip design for both startups and tech gaints. James's current day job is Director of Hardware Engineering at Raspberry Pi. James has more recently spent most of his spare time designing Slice's electronics.

Gordon Hollingworth - Director of Software Engineering, Raspberry Pi

Gordon is director of software engineering at Raspberry Pi and was previously involved with the low level firmware software running on BCM2835. He also developed Amino's first high definition IPTV set top box so knows a great deal about multimedia streaming as well as mobile multimedia systems.

so I have complete faith in the design and im sure it will run faster than any raspberry pi out there since they will have optimised it to its full potential.

this slice does fill in a big market. a market where people are to intimidated with reading forums and doing the technical stuff themselves. Its basically a Pivos box but for the broadcom chip. I wish them all the success and believe that they done well. box looks cool.

dont forget guys that this benefits every pi user since this box is designed for Kodi in mind and so any optimisation learnt from this box will trickle down.

but for everyone on this forum this box seems like overpriced which I can see that point of view since you can get a HP chromebox cheaper than this. but its not aimed at us, i think. but if your willing to spend 4 hours learning the curve of how tos and stuff for xbmc, then its not even in the same league as a chromebox, and more expensive

[Hedda]

Slice media player hit their initial £90,000 goal yesterday so the campaign is now funded and gone into the stretch goals phase.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fiv...sts/955548
Trending towards reaching £500,000 if all goes well http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/fivenin...-and-more/

They are now also have an offer for you to just get the Remote Control for only £15 including worldwide shipping

'Remote Control' - Be one of the first to get our custom 2.4GHz wireless remote. This remote is great for any XBMC install with a USB port. We have also designed a remote control that works in harmony with the new Slice interface but also works very well with standard XBMC too. Free worldwide shipping

In addition they are also offering to ship you two Remote Controls with USB RF dongle for only £25

[MediaPi]

£179 for a slice with terabyte hardrive....they are kidding right

HP Chromebox £149.95
http://www.johnlewis.com/hp-chromebox-cb...mcampid=73


MELE F10 Pro USB Wireless Remote Control + Fly Air Mouse + Keyboard + Mic £19.99
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MELE-F10-Pro-U...3391898d61

granted its not a terabyte hardrive but the prices are dropping, reached sub £40 just 3 weeks ago.
and if you shop around and wait some for good deals like
£5 off that mele remote, which by the way is also leagues ahead of their custom remote
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MELE-F10-Pro-U...2ed569833f

so now you got £15 in the bag for a hardrive, save some more and terabyte.

sorry but its a Pi in a fancy and distracting case. imagine watching a movie with those lights. shocked they reached their goal. rant over

[2002whitegt]

sorry but its a Pi in a fancy and distracting case. imagine watching a movie with those lights. shocked they reached their goal. rant over

I'm pretty sure they've mention that the lights are off when video is playing, and the lights can be turned off completely.

I do however admire that custom pcb... I'm not shocked they reached their goal, they seem to have a specific niche they are trying to fill, and it's obvious that there is demand for something that is plug and play.

To be honest I am thinking really hard about pledging, I can't run my previous NAS set up at my current home, so local storage is a priority for me.

[micware]

I see if they reached £130,000 then you can buy one (pledge) with a 2TB HDD
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fiv...r-and-more

[nickr]

As far as I can see it is not limited to local media, it can also access over the network. More like it is not limited by lack of local storage.

At least that's how I read it.

[micware]

It can do everything a raspberry pi can do and more,
so you don't need local storage, the OS is on the compute module
You can stream over ethernet cable or wifi.
you even install your own OS (Lunix based)
they use their own sound chip (pass through DTS and Dolby optical)

[Milhouse]

It fills a niche, it's a plug & play solution, and should work pretty well - reliably, with good quality playback and a reasonable UX (provided the library size is fairly moderate). It will work with local and/or NAS media (the HDD is entirely optional).

The price is a little high compared with a regular Pi, but when you add up all the extra parts (bundled remote control, higher quality DAC, HDD capability, fancy case with blinken lights, real support not just user-to-user) and the entire lack of any learning curve needed to get it all set up with an OS and Kodi, it's maybe not so bad.

It seems to be based on OpenELEC, and they've committed to releasing the software they use back to the community, including the skin (which actually looks rather nice). So that's a major plus in their favour, by doing the right thing.

Compared with other Pi-based media center rip offs on Kickstarter that were literally a regular Pi in a cheap box running a re-branded version of XBMC, these guys have done a fair bit of work on the hardware side to bring this to where it is today, so credit to them for that at least. They are obviously pretty serious about this as a proposition and given their backgrounds extremely credible, which makes a pleasant change from the usual charlatans/chancers peddling "XBMC solutions".

Hopefully it opens Kodi up to a lot more people that may otherwise would not have taken the plunge.

Edit: My only concern with a "consumer oriented Kodi" solution (not specific to Slice) is the lack of support for subscription-based streaming services (Netflix etc.) which consumers may reasonably expect when buying a media-center/smart box. This is less of an issue when people like us are installing Kodi ourselves, for £0, and we know what we're installing/getting.