Developers want to build media player based on Raspberry Pi

A group of developers has started a funding campaign to build a media player built around the Raspberry Pi. The media player runs on XBMC with a custom interface, which according to the makers is more user-friendly.

The developers hope to raise an amount of 90,000 pounds, about 112,000 euros, with the financing campaign via Kickstarter to build the media player, called Slice. At the time of writing, they are about half way near their goal. According to the five initiators, the Slice is based on Raspberry’s Compute Module announced in April, which is smaller than the other boards that Raspberry offers, making it more suitable to be built into other hardware.

The version of the compute module used has a BCM2835-soc with a clock speed of 700MHz built-in. The RAM is 512MB and the storage capacity is 4GB. Furthermore, the Slice itself has a hard drive with a capacity of 1TB, but it is also possible to connect an external storage source via one of the USB 2.0 ports. There is also an Ethernet port and an HDMI connection to connect the Slice to, for example, a television. There is an infrared receiver to also be able to operate the Slice with a remote control.

The software of the Raspberry Pi based media player is XBMC. On top of that, the makers have built a custom interface. As a result, the software should be more user-friendly, according to the developers. Various themes are also available.

Interested parties can order a Slice via Kickstarter for a price of 179 pounds, converted 223 euros, although there are also a few cheaper ‘early bird’ versions. The initiators hope to be able to supply the media player from December.