Boxee's growing up! The media center's hit beta status, and with the new Greek letter comes a revamped UI and some new functionality. For starters, the front page has been redesigned to highlight the menu, your personal queue, featured content, and recommendations that are fed in from Facebook or Twitter. For video, local files and online content are integrated into the same menu, can be filtered by free or pay content, and television shows are now sorted by season and episode. We're particularly fond of the new global menu for quick shuffling through the menu and to shortcuts. At an
event tonight in New York, the company's also announced
three new apps: The Escapist, Suicide Girls, and most interesting of all, "TV Guide to the Web" Clicker. On the more technical side of things, the graphical backend has switched from OpenGL to DirectX, and NVIDIA's been cooperating to better optimize the software for use on the Ion platform via DXVA and Flash 10.1. Good changes all around, except we did just hear that it won't support 64-bit in Karmick Koala -- sorry, Ubuntu fans. As previously mentioned, there's no wide release available yet, so you'll just have to live vicariously through the gallery below!
posted December 7th 2009 8:00PM
Ok Hai!
So, my name is Boxxy etc.etc. etc.
@Ahmedz
this type of thread brings the inner / /tard in us doesn't it?
@Ahmedz
I wish it was that kind of Boxxy but alas.... :/
@Ahmedz
I'm not trollin'. I'm boxxy you see [^_^]
They're not trollin'.
Does this thing have Hulu and Netflix on board? This is what is really needed.
@(Unverified)
Hulu won't allow applications like Boxee to access it. In the alpha, Boxee used a workaround by including a Mozilla-based browser to access Hulu, but they didn't showcase this in the beta event. It's not the most elegant of solutions, and the folks at Hulu wouldn't be too happy to see it shown off on anything other than Hulu's own Desktop Software.
This is sort of interesting because if I'm not mistaken, xbmc more heavily relies on OpenGL. Still, nice to see them taking full advantage of Ion's potential, and I assume this will start showing up on commercial HTPC's (Acer Aspire Revo, etc.) in no time.
@Slick There's also a DirectX port on Windows.
@(Unverified)
The DirectX port is not using DXVA, which is the only reason I would care about DirectX vs OpenGL.
There is however a fork being done very recently with a DXVA enabled player. It is not part of the main release, however.
@Barky Yeah, I know, been using it myself :-)
@(Unverified)
How do you like it? What hardware / OS are you running? Can you play BR rips?
Switched from OpenGL to DirectX ?Boing boing! Why ?
@akisweb DXVA. That's why. Who doesn't want hardware accelerated HD content? ^^
@(Unverified) Open Gl has video accelaration too. I misunderstand.
Boxee for Windows will have DirectX, reasonable:
"As part of the Beta we also changed the underlying graphic library on Windows from OpenGL to DirectX, and we’re now taking advantage of DXVA, which means Boxee for Windows just got faster and can play 1080p without your CPU breaking a sweat"
I really hope they don't give linux the shaft, since if you run windows you may as well just use Windows Media Center.
Looks OK, but it's no Plex
@spamtarget Plex is overrated dung, but semi-pros. MacBook Pro and Mac mini work like a beast running that crap
Will it work?
Can't wait to give this a whirl......May be I can skip buying the media box (set-top boxes) altogether and just use my desktop w/my tv.
and ofcourse w/me htib
You know. I'm a fairly new Ubuntu user (only since Jaunty Jackalope), and I feel slightly... miffed that there isn't a 64 bit version yet. Good thing I'm dual-booting; this should run better than WMC on my PC. One question; will it accept coaxial input from a cable box?
Too bad Boxee crashed during the demo while playing the Muppets version of "Bohemian Rhapsody". Hopefully the full release will be more stable.
Apple TV is screewed out of it's little aluminium mind.
this is way better than the previous version. good progress boxee!
No 64-bit still? WTF is wrong with these guys?
Does the beta finally bring shuffle to music playing? I really hate having to close out of Boxee and fire up iTunes for music still.
@RCook55 Boxee and xbmc have always had shuffle.
@AzzX Where/How I've been using Boxee for quite a while and I've never seen a library wide shuffle feature.
Not too big of a deal, but it's Karmic and not Karmick.
Anyway, the boxee beta looks absolutely incredible, though I haven't played with boxee for a while.
XBMC has two versions for the Windows platform DX and OpenGL. The Devs are looking to stay with DX with Windows / xbox1 and GL for everything else.
Being a Fork of XBMC I would love Boxee's DXVA implementation to be utilised with xbmc.
@AzzX Boxee's DXVA branch is a port of XBMC's DXVA branch.
@(Unverified) It's actually not http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=63605
So now that its Direct X, do I have to wait for a ported version from Aspyr?
You's trrrrooollinnnn! But I was like I'm not trollin! I'm boxee you see!? ^-^
Oh lord
is this thing going to have Hulu and netflix? i tried the alpha, and it was nice, but it couldn't do much, I would never buy a physical object from them.
Call me crazy, but how is this in any way superior to an Xbox360? I'm serious. What does this do that that doesn't, and does it do enough to justify the price (bearing in mind that the 360 also plays games, streams music, videos and pictures, has netflix, facebook, and lastfm integration, and... well you get the idea)?
@politicalslug
I don't own a 360, so I don't have a really good frame of reference to answer your question. I have tried Boxee and think it has a LOT of potential. I've had it since fairly early on in the alpha testing and it has come a long way. But I still use XBMC as my primary medial player on the HTPC. Can't wait to get my hands on the Boxee beta, and see if that changes things. In general, I'll say this. It is all about the interface. You should try out Boxee ( and XBMC ) on your desktop. Really use it. Set it up with a remote if you've got one. Then decide for yourself if it is better than the 360. It is free, so why not give it a shot.
@politicalslug unrestricted media formats, opensource and multiplatform.
@politicalslug
In all likelihood you won't have to buy a new one every 6 - 12 months to keep using it for one. I gave up on the 360 after my 5th one (and only went that far because I bought extended warranties). I loved the media capabilities of the 360, I just couldn't rely on it. Secondly, if they hold true to the alpha it will work across multiple platforms so you won't be tied to a single piece of hardware or OS. Plus, as mentioned before the multi-format capabilities.
@ph4ntom
That's just ridiculous and you know it! I bought my xbox 360 from Costco with my American Express card. That means it has a four year (3 years from Microsoft + 1 additional year from Amex) warranty on the red ring. I have only had that problem once, and Costco returned it and gave me credit. It was a 20GB that I paid $349 for with two controllers and the recharge pack. I then used that credit to buy the newer 60Gb bundle with all the same stuff (2 controllers and the recharge pack) plus two (albeit lame) games and it was only $299. I pocketed the difference. Whatever problems you had, you certainly didn't deal with them well. I had a friend have 6 xbox360's go bad on him in the span of 5 months, but frankly he was asking for it: he bought the first one from Gamestop and it was used, as was each subsequent replacement. It sucks, but it's certainly atypical.
@politicalslug
Well it doesn't get the red ring of death. It is also much quieter than the xbox and most likely will use less power. It's much more open than the xbox as new content can easily be added and developed. You don't have to pay a monthly fee just to see the netflix logo.
@politicalslug Granted 3 is not a good sample size but you can't miss the irony of you saying it's atypical when you, your friend, and the OP all had to replace your 360 at least once.
Well i have an xbox 360 an would buy this, main reason is playing .mkv and when watching movies not having the noise of the xbox 360 fans blowing my mind.
I know you can get an .mkv player for 100$ but i would gladly give 200$ for the extra content of the D-Link Boxee Box if only they would make it in a normal design like the WD TV.
@politicalslug
Well i have an xbox 360 an would buy this, main reason is playing .mkv and when watching movies not having the noise of the xbox 360 fans blowing my mind.
I know you can get an .mkv player for 100$ but i would gladly give 200$ for the extra content of the D-Link Boxee Box if only they would make it in a normal design like the WD TV.
Well their Beta signup is toast, yet another minus for the ole Google doc system.
"Something bad happened. Don't worry, though. The Spreadsheets Team has been notified and we'll get right on it. "
No YOU don't worry when you find me waiting for you in the parking lot.
I'd love for Boxee to get an ARM port. To be put on Android powered PMPs. Plug that to your TV and get a ZuneHD like experience in terms of UI and functionality. What I mean is, you get the regular Google Android or device UI, but when you plug it into the Dock or TV connector, TV, it launches Boxee. I'd love that. Mobile devices are just getting more and more powerful. I'm sure it can do it.
@Teslanaut An Arm port of XBMC is in development
http://xbmc.org/theuni/2009/10/23/xbmc-on-arm-gles-2-0/
Boxee is basically XBMC underneath all the Web 2.0 stuff so when XBMC-Arm is done Boxee will be able to use it.
Keep in mind though XBMC/Boxee requires also an OpenGL ES GPU in any Arm system for it to work so not all Arm devices would be able to run it.
Anyone have a link for the Windows Beta? ;-)
So is this an equivalent to Windows Media Center? or something better?
@(Unverified) Windows Media Center has DVR functionality, boxee not. As boxee is based on XBMC, it can play a much wider variety of video format, more social and internet video-oriented. As I don't discuss taste, it's up to you which interface you like better (I like actually both of them).
Win Media Center has a plugin to launch boxee directly and return to Media Center after you finished there. I guess best of both worlds.