Boxee Box - a short review.

[Picklz]

I received a Boxee Box for my brithday and I know at least a couple people had some questions / interest in the devices so I thought I'd write a quick little review of my experience with it so far.

For those who do not know, Boxee started out as a GUI/Software application for home theater PC's, it allows streaming of web-based content (music, movies, TV, youtube, etc) as well as local content such as music/video/etc on a PC or file server. It also plays media of USB hard drives, SD cars, etc. Boxee is a free software application you can run on a PC, the Boxee Box is a piece of hardware developed by D-Link that comes pre-loaded with the Boxee software, has a pretty awesome RF remote w/ mini keyboard built in, and is silly easy to setup, plug it into your intertubes and you are ready to go.

Image of the box itself, it's quite small and pretty cool looking:

And the remote:

My primary use for the device was to play local movies and TV episodes that are stored on a file server at my house. These are in all different types of formats, many of which my xbox360 and PS3 would not play without converting or transcoding the video first. The files are also a horrible mess as far as their names, ie: no real naming convention. So I started the boxee up, went through a few setup things such as the network setup, telling it what to do for audio/video output, and then told it where to find my movies. It took about 15-20 minutes for it to scan and update the video library an I was left with a screen such as this:



So, it automatically figured out what the movie titles were and downloaded the art/descriptions/etc, all I did was tell it where the files were! Freakin awesome.

So far it's played every format I could throw at it. A couple of 1080p files I had stopped once or twice to buffer so I'm looking into what might be causing that (my network, the file server, the boxee box itself, etc) but other than that everything has been seemless.

Video Capture @ 720p ~106" Image:


As far as streaming content off the web, about all I've done is checked out the youtube and failblog plugins. The youtube one works well enough, it takes a few seconds for it to load the youtube page then it automatically sends the clip to full screen, it makes searching for various clips or catagories pretty easy. Once I've had more time to play with that aspect of it, and the Netflix part of it, I'll try an post more info.

If anyone wants me to test anything, post screenshots of something specific, etc just let me know. Overall for my needs I couldn't be happier with the box so far.

 

[AJ]

Very cool shit, nice review!

 

[DrWebster]

Picklz, do you know if it can play whole VIDEO_TS folders from ripped DVDs? I'm essentially looking for a way of having a DVD library be all ripped to my file server, but keeping the DVD menus, alternate languages and captions, extras, etc.

 

[Grappler]

Thats pretty cool

 

[Picklz]

I suspect it will Colin but I'll give it a try and see. My plan was to to use DVD Decrypter and just rip to ISO files, but I can try a VIDEO_TS folder too and see how it behaves. I'll let ya know.

 

[Picklz]

Alright so played with Boxee some more this morning. It plays DVD's ripped to ISO's very well, all menu functions and such are there, I would say this is the cleanest / best way of doing things. It will also play from Video_TS folders, however there are a few catches. First the Video_TS folder must be changed to the name of the movie, second - occasionally you'll find a movie it struggles with in this format, and third - sometimes it takes 10-15 seconds once you hit the menu screen for it to fully load and allow you to make selections. I think there are some settings that might help improve the compatability with Video_TS but personally I'll just be ripping everything to .iso

Next some cool features I've come across:

The Boxee Bookmarklet - plugin for your browser that lets you 'bookmark' any video to be watched later on the Boxee, it automatically shows up in the 'watch later' menu on Boxee.

Livestation Boxee App - Lets you watch live TV from networks like BBC, UN, Al Jazeera, NASA, etc. Seems like there are a few others live-TV type apps with more stations too.

Subtitles - Originally I was having issues with subtitles always being on - I have since figured out how they work and have been able to disable these in all files I've played so far, they are on by default however so you have to turn them off each time, supposedly they are working on a global option to turn them off by default.

GoogleTV Webapps - there are a lot of websites / content groups that have specifc apps / sites for google TV, seems quite a few of these work with Boxee too, I tried out TBS and Cartoon Network, both worked well.

 

[mndsm]

You can watch BBC, and not BBC america? Dude, that's like free satellite! I kinda want one now.

 

[Picklz]

I have not actually loaded up the Livestation app yet, but from what I understand yes there are quite a few international stations from the UK, France, Middle East, etc. Pretty neat! I'll have a chance to try that out later today or tonight and let yas know how it works.

 

[AJ]

This thing is a torrent users dream it seems. Cause right now if i was to come across a blue ray rip i don't have shit that plays it.

 

[Big Nate]

I will be getting one of these.

Great review.

Are you wired or wireless?

 

[Picklz]

Good question - I'm wired since I have easy access to do so and I don't have 802.11n (just G). It has 802.11n wireless built in, which from what I'm reading handles everything up to 720p with no problems, 1080p depends on your AccessPoint, how strong the signal is, how everything is configured, the type of file, bitrate, etc, etc

One cool thing they added in the latest software release is allowing you to specify if your primary using the Box for streaming local content, or internet content. It then tailors the home screens and such based on that, I choose local content so now my default when I choose video it brings up my local video collection.

 

[YSOSLO]

Bumping this thread to see if the Boxee is still performing well after 11 months or so. I've been done with my Direct TV contract for over a year now and I'd love to find a better way to spend $90 a month. I think I can do local channels with a good quality HD over-the-air antenna, so I'm wondering what kind of content is out there that a device like the Boxee can handle. Anyone have any experience with Google TV? I've heard somewhere that Hulu isn't offering up-to-date TV shows anymore. Is this true? I'm not looking to setup my own server or anything, and I don't have 800 hours of movies etc on a hard drive anywhere, so I'm wondering if the Boxee would be worthwhile.

 

[dmention7]

Hulu still has current TV shows, but I think you might need the premium account to get all the good stuff. I know Nanami has that, and she's always watching episodes within a couple days of them airing.

 

[Picklz]

AJ is probably going to be the best person to ask about what the Boxee can stream via the internet, I know he got one and has been using at least some of its streaming abilities. Mine is used 99% of the time for streaming local content so I'm not going to be much help. Dan has one too but I think he's in the same boat as me.

Also fixed the images I apparently broke when re-organizing my photobucket account.

 

[AJ]

Bumping this thread to see if the Boxee is still performing well after 11 months or so. I've been done with my Direct TV contract for over a year now and I'd love to find a better way to spend $90 a month. I think I can do local channels with a good quality HD over-the-air antenna, so I'm wondering what kind of content is out there that a device like the Boxee can handle. Anyone have any experience with Google TV? I've heard somewhere that Hulu isn't offering up-to-date TV shows anymore. Is this true? I'm not looking to setup my own server or anything, and I don't have 800 hours of movies etc on a hard drive anywhere, so I'm wondering if the Boxee would be worthwhile.

Hulu is not currently available on Boxee. Boxee is however working awesome. I have a few people at work that are getting one to replace their cable as well. It' something that takes time to understand and set up but the features make it pay for itself imho. The best part is there are no monthly fees, if for some reason you want to go back to cable, go for it, Boxee is still there, monthly fee free. My highlights:

No Hulu = big whoop. I get Netflix and internet access to any show found on a network. CBS doesn't even offer their shows on Hulu (I'm taking Hulu Plus into account as well), but with Boxee I can rock shows from sites like Spike TV, CBS, and others. You can pass on any red box needs for movies, the Vudu online collection is fantastic and available in HD. The browser is letting me watch the football game online right now on my tv upstairs.

Hulu still has current TV shows, but I think you might need the premium account to get all the good stuff. I know Nanami has that, and she's always watching episodes within a couple days of them airing.

Yup, Hulu pops them up 4-5 days after, Hulu Plus is next day.

AJ is probably going to be the best person to ask about what the Boxee can stream via the internet, I know he got one and has been using at least some of its streaming abilities. Mine is used 99% of the time for streaming local content so I'm not going to be much help. Dan has one too but I think he's in the same boat as me.

Also fixed the images I apparently broke when re-organizing my photobucket account.

I've used it for a solid mix of streaming, and movie playing. I can grab any file from my computer and even borrow them from someone else and play right off a usb. If you use torrents, the boxee is a perfect complement in every way. Boxee from my understanding is also the top tier in this market of software/hardware. Google TV is also from my understanding no longer being made, at least Logitech has dropped out.

 

[YSOSLO]

Great info guys! Thanks! I have a few clarifying questions as well as some logistical questions. AJ, you mentioned no Hulu, but then later mentioned you're watching a game on Hulu....are you saying the Boxee doesn't work with Hulu? If not, how are you seeing the Hulu content on your TV? For those of you using Boxee/Hulu/Hulu+ etc, how are you getting the video to appear on multiple TV sets?

My family has 4 TVs on multiple levels (I live in a tri-level) and I'm wondering how it all would need to be physically setup to work well. It would be unrealistic for me to try to wire ethernet all over the place, so I'm thinking it'll have to be some sort of wireless network, but what type of equipment is used to get a TV to receive the wireless content? If my wife wants to watch 1 show upstairs and my daughter wants to watch a movie downstairs and I want to watch a football game in the basement, how might we go about doing that? Would we need multiple Boxees or a Boxee and a PC or two that are streaming content?

 

[AJ]

Short and sweet,

Hulu/Hulu+ is not avialable on the Boxee yet, it's in the works, but apparently that's been the case for a while.

I watch the games via the Boxee Browser app, not through Hulu/Hulu+

I watch Hulu on multiple TVs with Sony Blu-Ray players that are also set up for Netflix/Hulu in those rooms, Boxee is only tied to one tv.

I rock the Boxee with a hard wired connection, but wireless works to. Honestly with the money you can save on a cable bill, you can outfit the other TVs with more standard players for each TV.