Boxee Box out tomorrow

[ryanallan]

Did any one else pre-order?

Mine shipped today, should have it tomorrow!

[jsn]

how exactly does this work? You don't have to pay for the service? Do you have to find your own sites to stream tv shows from?

[mushi_mushi]

This looks really cool. I thought it was supposed to be out Nov 30, are you sure about the release date. As cool as this thing looks I think I would still prefer xbmc. It would be awesome if they got that to work with xbmc. (since boxee is basically a fork of xbmc) After a couple of these media tank devices have bombed ill think ill wait for the reviews before making judgment. I think the boxee box also recently decide to go with a better cpu or gpu cant remember which. It is supposed to improve playback of higher bitrate files. The remote looks really nice. When you get one let us know what you think.

[mushi_mushi]

Originally posted by jsn
how exactly does this work? You don't have to pay for the service? Do you have to find your own sites to stream tv shows from?

This device plays media on your network as well as searching the web for content. You tell this device where your media files are, it goes onto the web and downloads cover art/info for all your music, tv shows, movies etc. It also goes online and aggregates the content. Say NBC and CBS have tv shows on their website that you can watch, this goes and grabs the links to those so you can watch them on your tv. the problem is in Canada the content is pretty locked down, there is hardly anything.

[ryanallan]

Originally posted by jsn
how exactly does this work? You don't have to pay for the service? Do you have to find your own sites to stream tv shows from?

Pretty much what mushi_mushi said.
The Boxee Box will take media stored on your network and stream it to your TV via HDMI.
One if its biggest selling points is its organization of your media. It will go online and find album art, and arrange your media in really simple to navigate categories.

Its ability to play back pretty much any media type, and its media organization were the selling points for me.

It was originally developed with NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 processor, but later switched to the 1.2GHz Intel Atom CE4100. Apparently for performance reasons.; the Tegra chip not able to process some HD formats.

Pre-orders shipped November 10th, and B&M stores are getting theirs a week later.

I'll post pics as soon as I get mine!

[Kinjou]

Bro got one and set it up. Pretty nice looking. Havent played with it yet though

[mushi_mushi]

Yeah ive been periodically looking for updates on this thing all day. Looks like the Canadian retailers released it a day early. I think 199 is a really good price point for something like this once you consider what your getting. I think there will be some interesting hacks for this thing down the road. Im actually thinking of picking one up based on good initial impressions. Other devices like popbox had a horrible release, from what I can tell most people seem really pleased with it so far. The new firmware is supposed to roll out tomorrow. Looking forward to hear what you guys think after you've had some time to play with it.

[mushi_mushi]

I have boxee installed on my computer, I dont use it often. I just ran it and a bunch of Canadian content has been added. Before you chose from maybe 5 shows now it looks like there's a 100 if not more. Under closer inspection alot of these dont seem that great but they still have tons of good shows like daily show, chappelle, the office (lots of other ones I havnt watched like glee, how I met your mother, fringe etc) Things are looking good, ill probably pick this up.

It would be nice if they had access to more content providers, from my brief experiences it seems like they have citytv, not sure who else.

[ryanallan]

^ I downloaded it for my PC too, couldnt wait ahah.
Its pretty neat, cant wait for the real thing now.
According to some guy on AVS forums, apparently you can you stream your NHL center ice through this! Combined with the TV shows, tt really seems like they are tying to make this the center of your living room.

I didn't get anything in the mail today, hopefully tomorrow!

[mushi_mushi]

^^I was following the thread on avs too Where did you preorder yours from, its seems like they have them in stores right now.

[Agent_Oorange]

It's not bad, but it didn't exceed my expectations, yet at least, make sure you update the firmware first thing, the version that comes shipped was really slow for me, update fixed that.

Some of the TV library episodes don't work, some will get audio but no video as well.

For playing content off an attached USB drive, no problem sits there and plays 1080p MKVs without a problem, haven't tried over the network yet, will give it a go tomorrow.

And yeah they have them in stock at Futureshop and BestBuy, the BestBuy I went to thought they were to be released on the 11th but after showing them that their website said the 10th they gave me one

[ryanallan]

Originally posted by mushi_mushi
^^I was following the thread on avs too Where did you preorder yours from, its seems like they have them in stores right now.

I pre-ordered from Future Shop.
Today is a holiday, so im assuming Canada Post is not working, tomorrow it is.
What's the point of a pre-order if you end up getting your thing 3 days after the release date

There was a review from some guy in London Ontario last night. The "Canadian" version had lots of free shows in the TV section. Most of it was garbage, but at least there was something there.
Hum, I hope this gets the BBC iPlayer next year!

[Mitsu3000gt]

So how is this better than the WD Live? It sounds like it doesn't do much in Canada other than stream media and download CD covers. WD live has an amazing user interface too, and you can easily organize your media.

Also if it's grabbing episodes off the TV network's websites like CTV or whatever, those don't have 5.1 audio do they? That would defeat much of the appeal of watching it not on a computer.

I've yet to find something that WD live cannot play, its fairly amazing in that respect. It just works, all the time.

I don't know a lot about these though so feel free to enlighten me. WD Live is half the price too.

[BigMass]

umm wireless router and wireless DLNA? Or just HDMI from your laptop to your TV? All these extra gadgets just take up space IMO

[mushi_mushi]

I like how they are getting more content for canada but we are still lagging far behind the us. I think boxee is supposed to be getting hulu+ which is a paid service, but your supposed to get better quality up to 720p. I wouldnt mind paying $10 a month provided I get access to large selection of shows. I dont think canadians will have access to hulu+. From what ive read they've rolled out with v1 today and its supposed to be alot snappier, but they also changed the menu for the worse. (photos/music no longer on the main selection screen, its under files). At the price point this is attractive product, I think ill wait and see what happens, although it is tempting to buy one because of the price.

Im putting together a WHS/media streamer together as a gift for a family member and debating what to go with for the media streamer. You can build a htpc for ~300 so its a tough call.

Speaking of media streamers, any of you guys use hulu, and if so do you guys access it through a vpn. I just want to set something up where it just works.

[Agent_Oorange]

Yeah you can access through a VPN, if you don't have access to one with an endpoint in the states and your on Windows use Widecap to proxy your browser and disable cookies and flash cookies from the hulu.com domain - works like a charm once you get it setup.

[mushi_mushi]

So whats everyone's impression of this thing? Getting some mixed reviews on other forums. It seems like it has a good start but the product itself isnt as polished as some would like. Has anyone here tried to get hulu/netflix from the us via something like strongvpn? One thing that looks really annoying is that every time you turn the unit on it has to re-cache the images for your Im not really a fan of the form factor, looks unique yes, but not very practical.

[ryanallan]

Just finished setting mine up. I was shocked at how small this thing actually is. I like how the Boxee logo lights up when power is turned on.

I am still making my way through the settings, and adding all my media. Kind of stupid how you cant have a custom background image like you could in the 0.9 version. And I still need to check out all the apps. Apparently you can get an app to set a background image for you.

Any way, I look forward to exploring the box more.

[Mitsu3000gt]

I still don't understand how these things are significantly different from a WD Live which is half the price. Is it just interface customization, background, etc.? I wouldn't think most people would care about that because they are using it to watch movies/tv shows.

[Shadowpaw]

Originally posted by Mitsu3000gt
I still don't understand how these things are significantly different from a WD Live which is half the price. Is it just interface customization, background, etc.? I wouldn't think most people would care about that because they are using it to watch movies/tv shows.

I own both and I'll never go back to the WDTV Live. It depends on the person, but the WDTV is just clunky and outdated in comparison. I have 7 different shares that I need to pull data from and it's tough to navigate my movies when I'm looking into each share and just seeing the text listing like a folder structure. Boxee takes all my movies and downloads the movie posters, the synopsis, rating, genres, etc... and let's me view all of my movies in one location and I don't have to keep things organized on the back end. I just throw my movies into whatever share has space and Boxee takes care of the rest. You also get the ability to filter all the content, by genre, watched/unwatched, alphabetical order etc... (at least in the 0.9 firmware, which is what I'm running).

WDTV is equivalent to connecting to a folder on your computer and just playing the file... Boxee is far more dynamic and simplifies things. If people want to watch "Avatar", they don't have to figure out which share Avatar is stored, they just go to the movie list and see the poster along with all the others and select the movie poster, read a description about it, see the rating, and watch it.

If you're plugging in an external hard drive to the back of a WDTV and you plan on doing the same thing with a Boxee, save your money and use a WDTV. But if you have lots of content that you need to organize, the Boxee Box is the way to go.