We're not sure how this affects the
zero-dollar revenue goal for 2009, but popular media player software
Boxee announced it has closed a $6 million round of financing including a new partner, General Catalyst. We'll let the money men assess value, the key point for users is how this affects the company's plan to take the platform from underground darling to mainstream hit - embedding the software in
connected TVs, Blu-ray player, game consoles and set-top boxes. With a
Windows alpha release in the bag and latest support from MLB.tv Boxee seems well on the way towards reaching larger audiences, CEO Avner Ronen says to look forward to the beta release this fall, more content deals and extending the
App Store and API support. Our advice is to avoid tearing an ACL itself dancing on stage like another recent independent performer turned-mainstream star, what would you like to see from Boxee now that the company has more resources to provide it?
posted Aug 12th 2009 9:48PM
Boxee or Boxxy?
icwutudidthar
Oh Hai, MY NAME IS BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
Damn it, you beat me to it.
I declare this "Boxee" the new queen of Engadget!
I didn't know there were /b/ tards on the egadgets?!
Rules 1 & 2 don't just apply to raids, come ON.
@Teslanaut
we are in your engadgetz, trolling all your macf@gz
Hypothetical situation:
"Aww man my new computer just died... I killed Boxxy. For some reason I am now happy....."
anyone who knows what /b/tard means would already know of their origin
Boxxy's on mah engadtools?
sure is /b/ in here....
holy shit /b/ when did you get here? all we need is epic fail guy
did somebody call?
call for /b/lackup.
@Teslanaut: /b/tards, in your Engadgets? It's more likely than you think.
MOAR!
wii or wee
Oh I don't know, make the app work right. Front Row works fine, XBMC is ok. But Boxee is a memory hog. I could not get it to connect nicely to my files on the HD, it would only pickup half, even though they were all the same format. It then would completely crash my system. It'd literally wait two minutes to go from quitting to back to the desktop. It's running on a quad 2.8GHz Mac Pro with an 8800GT so I don't think my computer is the issue.
front row is nothing compared to xbmc if you use stuff that Apple didn't sell to you. Look at the appletv sales after the xbmc hack appeared.
Yeah, the performance is terrible, along with the fact that it doesn't pull all of your media first, then ask questions about what it all is later.
It's because your running it on a Mac
try plex
support for hulu would be great again . . . the week that this actually worked on my XBMC was paradise!
yes, real native hulu support would be great. it's a very promising platform, as XBMC was. it natively supports DVD ISO disc images, which is an incredibly rare feature. if only it could tag them with metadata, it could make serious competition in the media center world (vs. My Movies for VMC, for example). also, the latest build is improved, but there's a lot of bug-fixing yet to do.
Get bought out by Roku. Roku makes a "Roku Pro" using Boxee software. Amazon buys Netflix, makes "Roku Pro" the exclusive hardware device of "Amazon On Demand" featuring Netflix streaming technology. Amazon begins releasing "same day as DVD" HD copies of movies on a monthly subscription basis.
And Sony gets the cancer.
Will they cut me off while I'm watching Nineteen Eighty-Four?
@ JohnTitor
I knew that was coming.
John, you're from the future so you tell me....
once it hits mainstream its no longer cool.
For real. I remember starting college in 1995, and like 1 in every 10 dorm rooms had computers.
Now, every dorm room has 2 computers.
Computers aren't cool anymore.
Dude, I was totally a fan of them before they released their second album, got a lot of airplay, and sold out to the MAN. Their music is just so CORPORATE now.
Boxee does have fairly high system requirements, which makes it hard to make a cheap set top box, which boxee needs. I'll tell you, I know it won't happen, but a port to PS3 sanctioned by Sony would be an amazing. Add the ability to record tv and the ps3 would own the living room.
What requirements do you think it needs? I'm running it on a base model Mac Mini. Works like a champ.
I completely agree with the ps3 sentiment. Especially after 360 owners got netflix and last.fm, I'd really like some good news for us ps3 owners. Of course, since I found ps3mediaserver, the only additional gain I'd see from official boxee support would be the nicer UI, since ps3ms can transcode video on the fly, which effectively gives me support for all videos which are stored on my computer.
My PS3 records TV :-)
(PlayTV inside)
Another vote for a port for PS3, that would be sweet, now, if only there was a way to make my PS3 not sound like a jet engine in my living room...
I'm all for it, just stay one of the good guys plz, I like boxee a lot. Unfortunately I think the reality is that ISP v. connected TVs is just starting :/
64bit support for Ubuntu...
/b/? Are you there?
Boxee is a nice product. Wish that Hulu would play nice with them, I think both would benefit. I just wish that you could add your own cover art or if there was a way to improve the automated cover art for movies and music.
1. Add Live TV. I don't think this thing will really take off without Live tv.
2. Make some sort of password protected RSSFeed support, this so that devs don't have to actually make an app to provide boxee support to their subscribers.
3. Make better documentation for rss and python apps, with many more samples.
4. Make an app store where devs can sell services without making users leave boxee. Some of the boxee boxes won't have a web browser.
5. Hire more programmers so u can speed things out.
I love you.
If they make a set top box don't lock out XBMC and you have a sale. I like XBMC way better than boxee.
me too, xbmc ftw!!
I wish they'd fix the local media recognition, it works great in XBMC but doesn't even half work in Boxee, which makes it's WAF zero... it's useless.
@ Richard Lawler
who is the unnamed un linked company, you refer to in the article.
"dancing on stage like another recent independent performer turned-mainstream star, "
Ohhhhhh! Drake ref, dancing accross stage like a recent indepentent stat. How the fuck did I miss that! I'm a early early drake fan from performances on degarssi! Damn I'm full of fail.
Sike
I never comment on Engadget but I will comment because I like boxee, but more importantly Richard Lawler suffers from severe amounts of win. Major cool points for the Drake reference!
A cheap hardware solution. The problem with apple tv is that it's ~$250 for a device that doesnt do very well with 1080p and it's hacked. Roku, Popcorn Hour, Western Digital... all have hardware that would make for a nice boxee platform. A Boxee app for the 360 or ps3 would be awesome. A partnership with TIvo would be awesome. Something that allows me to use boxee software on hardware I don't have to put together or hack or use assorted dongles to connect to an HDMI port.
Better skins.
I think they should take the $6M and devise a cunning plot to infiltrate Hulu headquarters and stage a very hostile takeover.
I haven't seen anyone discussing the fact that Boxee is a fork of XBMC and they do some contributions back to XBMC and keep pace with it since a lot of the core work is from XBMC.