Get a Slice of Pi for your HDTV

FiveNinjas is now looking to bring the Slice to market and have launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign in an attempt to secure £90,000. The campaign runs until September 25th and is already over two-thirds of the way to achieving the fundraising target.

The idea behind Slice is to make something that's "not only aesthetically pleasing but also easy to use with a sense of fun." The media player, which is smaller than a standard Blu-ray player, runs on the open source media player software XMBC; software that's stable, full-featured and is constantly being developed.

XMBC will allow you to add information and box art to your media files provided you're connected to the Internet. Meanwhile, adding media to the 1TB hard-drive is simply a case of connecting it to a Mac or PC via USB and dragging and dropping media content. A remote control is included with every Slice box purchased for navigating the menus.

With Slice built around a Raspberry Pi Computer Module, it means that it can run a number of different operating systems. If you're not a fan of the software that comes preinstalled on Slice, therefore, you can change it to something to better suit your tastes. An added benefit is that it uses very little power and requires no active cooling.

If you want to secure a Slice for yourself, head over to the KickStarter page where you can pre-order one for £164 including free worldwide shipping.

Max Langridge

Max is a staff writer for What Hi-Fi?'s sister site, TechRadar, in Australia. But being the wonderful English guy he is, he helps out with content across a number of Future sites, including What Hi-Fi?. It wouldn't be his first exposure to the world of all things hi-fi and home cinema, as his first role in technology journalism was with What Hi-Fi? in the UK. Clearly he pined to return after making the move to Australia and the team have welcomed him back with arms wide open.