Slice – a media player using the Raspberry Pi Compute Module
We revealed the Raspberry Pi Compute Module back in April, and released the Compute Module Development Kit in the middle of June. Since then we’ve had a lot of interest and will shortly start shipping the Compute Module in volume to a variety of manufacturers who have already designed it into their products.
One of our goals with the Compute Module was to enable a generation of “Kickstarter consumer electronics” startups to develop commercial-quality products at relatively low volume. We’ve already we’ve seen the OTTO point-and-shoot camera, which was the first ever Kickstarter using the Compute module, and today marks the launch of another campaign which we hope will be even more successful.
Slice media player and remote
Slice is an XBMC media player built around the Compute Module, with simple custom skin, a shiny milled-aluminium case, and a cute ring of 25 RGB LEDs for (and I quote) “visual feedback and wow factor”. It’s been developed by Mo Volans, our old friends Paul Beech and Jon Williamson from Pimoroni, and our very own Gordon Hollingworth and James Adams; they’ve been burning the candle at both ends to get Slice to where it is now, and the prototypes are looking pretty drool-worthy.
Head on over to Kickstarter to see for yourself why we’re excited about Slice!
49 comments
The Raspberry Pi Guy
Damm that is one nice product!
The Raspberry Pi Guy
john
slice? awesome, can this device support installed lihattv plugins from lihattv.com? so i can watch live online tv streaming over it
Nick
it would be cool if there was a “QUERTY” Keyboard on the back side of the remote
Gordon
Unfortunately that doubles the cost of the remote…
Gordon
Martijn
I have an excelent idea with the compute module. I need however access to the camera and display interfaces hidden from use by the fact that the raspberry pi uses a Broadcom soc which is not fully open.
Nice to see that there are now 100001 xbmc capable devices, but what is the actual benefit of another one?
Things would really hit the road when the pi and all of its components/ports/hardware can be used freely. Broadcom should open up this outdated soc, period.
guru
Thanks guys! It’s odd to do something not made from layers of acrylic, but we thought this was a great opportunity to spread shinies and show how far the Pi has come :-)
We couldn’t have done it without the sterling work of the XBMC/OpenElec crew and the Foundation’s dedication to doing more with less by doing things right. The software is leaps ahead of where it was 2 years ago which makes Slice a really nice experience.
Sven
Am I the only one who cannot find “the video below”…?
Ton van Overbeek
I suppose it is the video on the Kickstarter page.
toby1kenobi
I like this idea, and it looks nice, it seems pricey though.
I think a hard drive-less version would make also sense – I’m sure there are lots of people who’d like this but already have their media on something like a NAS. Alternatively, you might want a few of these in your home, but only need one to have a drive.
Gordon
Check out the Preview pledge level
elParaguayo
At what point do we have to stop calling it XBMC and use its new name, Kodi?
Whatever happens it will always be XBMC to me!
guru
Release 14 (Helix) will have the Kodi name on it. I know someone who still runs it on an actual XBox :-)
clive
I run an original Xbox XBMC in the garage on an insanely huge Loewe 32″ CRT TV. Best set up ever (until Slice arrives of course ;))
Jason Bramwell
Since this is built from the ground up to be a media player I wonder if it will include the additional codecs or whether these will still be needed.
Gordon
Codecs will be shipped as standard
simon
Do you mean the ability to actually play ALL Mp4 videos? I have numerous which play audio but not video.
Tom Chiverton
That’s ‘Kodi’ in a box, no such thing as XBMC any more, because they are idiots…
guru
It’s still XBMC until the version 14 release. You should spend more time reading before commenting :-)
Jason Bramwell
I wonder if you can turn on/off just with the remote or whether you still have to pull power and replug.
Matt
No built-in WiFi from the outset? Why? :-/
It better be as good as the Roku… no, *seriously*, as they are dirt cheap and have tried, tested and loved functionality. If it isn’t, it’s just going to be another tiny box plugged into a TV – disco LEDs or not. I hope that you’ve designed a UX better than XBMC, or you’re going to find Google images of your device in dustbins.
I hope I am not being mean – I just hope you sort out the WiFi (it needs to be built in – this isn’t 2003).
Well done :)
guru
It’s 2014, yet transferring large files over WiFi is still a dicey, slow process. I love streaming, but it’s actually getting worse because everyone is clogging up the pipes, and ISPs aren’t keeping up with demand. Nobody is doing a worthy hard-drive media player, so we made one.
And yes, we’re keeping an eye on WiFi, but it’s mainly useful for low-bandwidth streaming and getting meta-data for Slice :-)
Dave Jones
I’d have to agree with this; I’ve currently got a NAS-like media store up in the loft and several little media players (including a Pi) attached to TVs around the house. I’ve experimented with wifi for streaming and found it’s okay for SD … until I start doing something else like chucking large files onto my netbook, at which point I get yelled at for ruining the movie my wife is trying to watch! Cue the delivery of some powerline ethernet plugs and now everything’s fine (yeah, they’re too expensive for what they are but dammit they just work – and they’re happy streaming HD too).
Personally, I’ve plumped for the preview pledge level because of all the TV media players I’ve tried (PS3, XBox360, Cyclone Nano/Pivos XIOS-DS, RPi), the Pi is the best all-rounder but had one glaring problem: accessing the XBMC database (which in my case is several gig big once all the art is included) is *awfully* slow due to the SD card I/O limitations. I’m vaguely hoping the SATA interface on the Slice is going to sort that out (to some extent), but I’m not interested in having a terabyte of storage on board (or burning the power required to keep those slivers of rust spinning around all the time). I only need a few gig for the OS, XBMC, and its database, and nowadays one can pick up a 40Gb SSD on Amazon for somewhere between 20 and 30 quid (unsurprisingly given I doubt many people are seriously interested in that size anymore).
I’d be really interested to know if, once the Slice hits production (assuming, as seems likely, that it gets funded), diskless options would still be available? Assuming my little experiment with a Slice+SSD works as well as I hope, I’d really like a few more :)
Matt Bilker
The Pi Compute Module has 4GB of EMMC storage built in. Probably for the OS and the database. Though you can probably replace the hard drive with a small SSD for XBMC/Kodi database storage.
gordon77
When it says the model without the HD is for ‘developers, hackers and the tech savvy’ does that mean they need to know how to plug in a HD or more than that ?
guru
You need to be able to unscrew the Slice (4 screws) and remove the PCB (5 screws). Then you plug in a (9.5mm or slimmer) 2.5″ SATA drive and screw it to the PCB.
If you can do that without knocking any components off or scratch the PCB, then you’re capable.
The only thing we can’t guarantee is that every hard drive on the market will work flawlessly, but we will let you know which ones are known to work and work well :-)
gordon77
Cheers
Steve
Looks great,
I like the user friendly skin, will the skin be available for download??
Tom S
Yeah, I need the skin too! Where can you download anything it said on the kickstarter page?
dimitrie
At first, I said it just another XBMC player build.
But then I realise this is a custom PI module board with sata build in.
Does this card shares the same USB line with USB ports, Ethernet and SATA like the traditional PI board ?
Matt
@dimitrie
The Pi doesn’t have SATA, and never did.
dimitrie
Exactly my point !
How did they wired up that Hard drive ?
Behind a USB HUB ?
Llion
Excuse my ignorance, but what benefit does running XBMC with a compute module have over the ‘Rpi only’ setup most of us are already running? What exactly is offloaded to it, what improvements are seen by the user?
Gordon
The advantage to using a compute module is the physical layout of the device… One of the original complaints about the Pi is the fact that the connectors aren’t on one side (obviously to reduce the size of the Pi)
It also allows us to add a SATA USB hard drive inside the box without making it huge.
Finally it allows us to add extra cool stuff you don’t get on a Pi like the RTC, audio codec and IR sensor…
Gordon
Nico_GH2
Already funded (200k+ euro) Kickstarter using the Compute module;
Homey
Darren Townsend
Good work guys! It looks like a really nice product, although 3 things occurred to me;
1/ I wondered why wi-fi was not installed as standard, as surely if would only add a couple of quid to the production cost, with no real downside
2/ While the aluminium case looks lovely, and the wooden ones even lovelier, how about going the other way (ie. cheaper) and making a Pi-bow style case?
3/ It would be nice to see (maybe as an add-on) a dvd drive, so that you can feed it cd’s or dvd’s and it will rip them automatically to the hard drive.
Domenico Lamberti
No.3 is what i’ve been looking for , for yonks! the idea of having a DVD player , you shove the DVD in, it says “do you want to watch it or store it” and there is an internal HDD that it rips to straight away, that’d be perfect
Gordon
Shame that’s illegal eh?
AndrewS
As long as you don’t remove any encryption (i.e. you still can’t legally do it for commercial DVDs) private copies *are* (finally!) now legal in the UK https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2014/victory-format-shifting-and-parody-clear-last-hurdle
Domenico Lamberti
If it could still be encrypted and never leave the device, i dont see why an ammendment to the law couldnt be made, physical copies are just asking to get damaged and streaming isnt always viable, a locally stored (encrypted) copy would be great
API
How does the SATA work on this then? Does it just converted back down to the USB 2.0 pipe?
Gordon
Yes
Jonny
I love this. It’s great to see how flexible a Pi is and I think the Open Compute Module is brilliant for enabling things like this.
In a few years (assuming it’s updated) will I be able drop a new Compute Module in?
Dexter
Hi Guys
For the preview version in Kickstarter, does it comes fully assembled or I need to ensemble and load the OS?
Thx
Mol
Is it also possible to get digital (hi-res) audio files out from eather one of the two usb connectors situated on the backside of the unit, so you can connect it to an externel DAC like the hifiberry or ifi DAC’s?
Elie
I have pledged the project on KS, but, as i am a newbie in the RPi / XBMC / … community, i’m wondering if i can download directly to the box if i connect it to my internet box (via ethernet).
To be more specific, i’d like to be able, when on my laptop (at home, on my wifi network), to download movies (torrent for example). BUT, i would like them to be stored on my slicebox directly, not on my laptop.
Maybe i’m asking something stupid, but i can’t find any answer about this…
mifasol
It looks good. It would be nice to also have some rubber kit to prevent/lessen hdd vibrations.
raspi
Actually that’s a good idea, you should write in the kickstarter comments section so they can put the idea in the list.
chrisyboy
This is cool, but to make it an ultimate bit of kit will it have an interface to use (for example) netflix or amazon prime?
Kameron
One big question I want answered is the possibility of a slightly cheaper retail model in January/February 2015. Somehow $280 seems a little high and I already missed the ‘preview’ version. I would be willing to pay $200 for a 1 TB used or new Slice off Ebay or Amazon in 2015.
Thanks,
~Kam