Boxee Box officially announced: under $200, Flash 10.1 support
By Nilay Patel 
posted January 5th 2010 11:25AM
posted January 5th 2010 11:25AM
D-LINK DEBUTS BOXEE BOX AT CES 2010; DIRECTLY LINKS INTERNET ENTERTAINMENT SERVICES TO TVs EVERYWHERE
Networking pioneer and popular entertainment software
create the best way to get the free entertainment the Internet has to offer with no monthly fee
LAS VEGAS, CES Booth 36232, South Hall, LVCC, Jan. 5, 2010 - D-Link made lots of geeks and early adopters happy today by introducing the revolutionary Boxee Box by D-Link, winner of the CES Best of Innovations award in the Home Entertainment category.
The Boxee Box by D-Link reinterprets what TV should be. The Boxee Box delivers movies, TV shows, music, and photos from a user's computer, home network, and the Internet to their HDTV with no PC needed. Additionally, Boxee's core social features make it easy for friends to discover new content from each other through social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and more.
Internet Entertainment
Boxee is a popular PC, Mac, and Linux software program that lets users watch hundreds of thousands of popular TV shows and movies. Instead of sifting through millions of confusing Web sites, when users search on Boxee, TV shows and movies are delivered to them with the click of a remote control. Nearly a million Internet users around the world have already downloaded Boxee to enjoy their online entertainment.
The Boxee Box by D-Link takes the same popular software and offers it up as a great device -- the perfect companion to a high definition TV. The Boxee Box by D-Link provides access to more than just traditional TV content. It includes a huge library that spans the Internet, such as university courses, panel discussions, academic lectures, presentations, web-only videos and more from TED, Stanford, FORA.tv, Kid Mango, Next New Networks and others. Boxee also makes it easy for users to add their own favorite entertainment sources with simple RSS or XML feeds available for most online video.
In addition to video content, Boxee users can access great music from sites like Pandora, last.fm, shoutcast, and We are Hunted as well as stunning photos from sites like flickr, Picasa and Facebook.
Personal Entertainment
For entertainment lovers who have built their own collections of digital media stored on their computer hard drive or home network, Boxee automatically identifies their content and downloads relevant cover art, synopses, reviews, subtitles, lyrics and more. This feature turns boring files and folders into beautiful media libraries that make it simple and appealing to navigate a collection of favorite movies, TV shows, and playlists with a simple remote. Furthermore, the Boxee Box by D-Link has extensive format support (see below) which ensures that when users hit the play button, they get instant gratification, with no need to download codecs or drivers. Also, with built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi support, it can transfer files without delay and from longer distances within a user's home.
Social Features
The Boxee Box by D-Link keeps people connected with social features to help users discover new content from friends, experts, and tastemakers.
The first step to discovery is sharing, and Boxee makes this easy by letting people recommend any playing content to friends. Additionally Boxee automatically uses recommendations from a user's Twitter and Facebook friends so they can find new content and instantly enjoy it on the big screen. Since anyone can build on top of Boxee's open App platform, users can craft their own truly custom experience by creating or downloading plug-ins, add-ons, games, and more.
"We are pleased to partner with Boxee and to be the first with such a ground-breaking device," said Nick Tidd, vice president of sales of D-Link Pan America and vice president of marketing for D-Link North America. "This powerful device with its unique form factor truly leverages Boxee's service and is the best way for consumers to quickly access the growing volume of Internet content, organize it and stream it to their TVs and home entertainment centers."
"D-Link's successful track record in bringing to market, award-winning digital home networking products, and its global marketing, distribution and channel sales capabilities made them a great fit for our first hardware vendor." stated Andrew Kippen, vice president of marketing for Boxee, "The Boxee Box by D-Link gives consumers what they want - an easy way to watch Internet or personal entertainment in their living rooms with a simple set-top box that costs under $200 and has no monthly fees."
The Boxee Box by D-Link is scheduled to ship in the first half of 2010 through the company's vast network of retail and e-tail outlets, and at D-Link's online store, www.dlinkshop.com.
Supported Codecs & Formats
Boxee can be used to play/view practically all common multimedia formats, including:
VIDEO:
Adobe Flash 10.1
H.264 (MKV, MOV)
VC-1
WMV
MPEG-1
MPEG-2
MPEG-4
AVI
Xvid
Divx
PCM/LPCM
VOB
AUDIO:
MP3
WMA
WAV
AIFF
FLAC
AAC
DTS
Dolby Digital
Ogg Vorbis
PHOTO:
JPEG
TIFF
BMP
PNG
About D-Link
D-Link is the global leader in connectivity for small, medium and large enterprise business networking. The company is an award-winning designer, developer and manufacturer of networking, broadband, digital electronics, voice, data and video communications solutions for the digital home, Small Office/Home Office (SOHO), Small to Medium Business (SMB), and Workgroup to Enterprise environments. With millions of networking and connectivity products manufactured and shipped, D-Link is a dominant market participant and price/performance leader in the networking and communications market. D-Link Systems, Inc. headquarters are located at 17595 Mt. Herrmann Street, Fountain Valley, CA, 92708. Phone (800) 326-1688 or (714) 885-6000; FAX (866) 743-4905; Internet www.dlink.com.
About Boxee
Boxee is the first "social" media center, whose free, downloadable software and enabled devices are changing the way consumers experience home entertainment. On a computer or on a dedicated device connected to an HDTV, boxee gives users a simple way to bring all their entertainment into one place including personal movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like Netflix, MLB.TV, Pandora, Last.fm, and flickr. Users can also share information about what they're watching so friends can enjoy it too through legal sources online. Nearly a million people use Boxee to get their entertainment. Learn how you can join them at www.boxee.tv.
D-Link, Boxee Box by D-Link and the D-Link logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of D-Link Corporation or its subsidiaries. All other third party marks mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright © 2009. D-Link. All Rights Reserved.
Networking pioneer and popular entertainment software
create the best way to get the free entertainment the Internet has to offer with no monthly fee
LAS VEGAS, CES Booth 36232, South Hall, LVCC, Jan. 5, 2010 - D-Link made lots of geeks and early adopters happy today by introducing the revolutionary Boxee Box by D-Link, winner of the CES Best of Innovations award in the Home Entertainment category.
The Boxee Box by D-Link reinterprets what TV should be. The Boxee Box delivers movies, TV shows, music, and photos from a user's computer, home network, and the Internet to their HDTV with no PC needed. Additionally, Boxee's core social features make it easy for friends to discover new content from each other through social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and more.
Internet Entertainment
Boxee is a popular PC, Mac, and Linux software program that lets users watch hundreds of thousands of popular TV shows and movies. Instead of sifting through millions of confusing Web sites, when users search on Boxee, TV shows and movies are delivered to them with the click of a remote control. Nearly a million Internet users around the world have already downloaded Boxee to enjoy their online entertainment.
The Boxee Box by D-Link takes the same popular software and offers it up as a great device -- the perfect companion to a high definition TV. The Boxee Box by D-Link provides access to more than just traditional TV content. It includes a huge library that spans the Internet, such as university courses, panel discussions, academic lectures, presentations, web-only videos and more from TED, Stanford, FORA.tv, Kid Mango, Next New Networks and others. Boxee also makes it easy for users to add their own favorite entertainment sources with simple RSS or XML feeds available for most online video.
In addition to video content, Boxee users can access great music from sites like Pandora, last.fm, shoutcast, and We are Hunted as well as stunning photos from sites like flickr, Picasa and Facebook.
Personal Entertainment
For entertainment lovers who have built their own collections of digital media stored on their computer hard drive or home network, Boxee automatically identifies their content and downloads relevant cover art, synopses, reviews, subtitles, lyrics and more. This feature turns boring files and folders into beautiful media libraries that make it simple and appealing to navigate a collection of favorite movies, TV shows, and playlists with a simple remote. Furthermore, the Boxee Box by D-Link has extensive format support (see below) which ensures that when users hit the play button, they get instant gratification, with no need to download codecs or drivers. Also, with built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi support, it can transfer files without delay and from longer distances within a user's home.
Social Features
The Boxee Box by D-Link keeps people connected with social features to help users discover new content from friends, experts, and tastemakers.
The first step to discovery is sharing, and Boxee makes this easy by letting people recommend any playing content to friends. Additionally Boxee automatically uses recommendations from a user's Twitter and Facebook friends so they can find new content and instantly enjoy it on the big screen. Since anyone can build on top of Boxee's open App platform, users can craft their own truly custom experience by creating or downloading plug-ins, add-ons, games, and more.
"We are pleased to partner with Boxee and to be the first with such a ground-breaking device," said Nick Tidd, vice president of sales of D-Link Pan America and vice president of marketing for D-Link North America. "This powerful device with its unique form factor truly leverages Boxee's service and is the best way for consumers to quickly access the growing volume of Internet content, organize it and stream it to their TVs and home entertainment centers."
"D-Link's successful track record in bringing to market, award-winning digital home networking products, and its global marketing, distribution and channel sales capabilities made them a great fit for our first hardware vendor." stated Andrew Kippen, vice president of marketing for Boxee, "The Boxee Box by D-Link gives consumers what they want - an easy way to watch Internet or personal entertainment in their living rooms with a simple set-top box that costs under $200 and has no monthly fees."
The Boxee Box by D-Link is scheduled to ship in the first half of 2010 through the company's vast network of retail and e-tail outlets, and at D-Link's online store, www.dlinkshop.com.
Supported Codecs & Formats
Boxee can be used to play/view practically all common multimedia formats, including:
VIDEO:
Adobe Flash 10.1
H.264 (MKV, MOV)
VC-1
WMV
MPEG-1
MPEG-2
MPEG-4
AVI
Xvid
Divx
PCM/LPCM
VOB
AUDIO:
MP3
WMA
WAV
AIFF
FLAC
AAC
DTS
Dolby Digital
Ogg Vorbis
PHOTO:
JPEG
TIFF
BMP
PNG
About D-Link
D-Link is the global leader in connectivity for small, medium and large enterprise business networking. The company is an award-winning designer, developer and manufacturer of networking, broadband, digital electronics, voice, data and video communications solutions for the digital home, Small Office/Home Office (SOHO), Small to Medium Business (SMB), and Workgroup to Enterprise environments. With millions of networking and connectivity products manufactured and shipped, D-Link is a dominant market participant and price/performance leader in the networking and communications market. D-Link Systems, Inc. headquarters are located at 17595 Mt. Herrmann Street, Fountain Valley, CA, 92708. Phone (800) 326-1688 or (714) 885-6000; FAX (866) 743-4905; Internet www.dlink.com.
About Boxee
Boxee is the first "social" media center, whose free, downloadable software and enabled devices are changing the way consumers experience home entertainment. On a computer or on a dedicated device connected to an HDTV, boxee gives users a simple way to bring all their entertainment into one place including personal movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like Netflix, MLB.TV, Pandora, Last.fm, and flickr. Users can also share information about what they're watching so friends can enjoy it too through legal sources online. Nearly a million people use Boxee to get their entertainment. Learn how you can join them at www.boxee.tv.
D-Link, Boxee Box by D-Link and the D-Link logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of D-Link Corporation or its subsidiaries. All other third party marks mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright © 2009. D-Link. All Rights Reserved.
@platinumbraces The side with the Boxee logo is actually the front. (If you go by that where the cables connect is the "back")
Look at the pictures from Dec 9 under related posts, the one with the Coke can and compare the posistion of the SD slot.
@platinumbraces It's asymmetrical, take a look at the coke can picture from the back. Clearly its rotated on the x and z axis, shifted, then sunk.
Hmmm no real media support which isn't surprising but a tad disappointing (for some god forsaken reason the Chinese love RMVB for their HD content....)
@satoru
Why isn't it surprising?
Also doesn't support APE audio and HD-photo (aka jpeg XR) formats, and probably not jpeg2000 either, although theoretically they could cover both under the header 'jpeg support', but I somehow doubt it's more than old jpegs
Oh and not mjpeg either, and that's odd since many cameras use mjpeg.
Nor huffyuv, and I don't see ASF mentioned either, but that's good, let MS keep their ASF..
@satoru
Real media sucks.
@Wwhat It's simply a lament on my part. I realize Real Media support is rare outside of Asia. Again why I indicated that the lack of such support is unsurprising, probably due to licensing or some such thing. It's simply a regional wrinkle in codec popularity. MKV is the standard in Anime stuff, which is why the lack of such support in a product would be a deal breaker for many. It just happens that a lot of Asian content uses RMVB. Users in Asia would see the lack of support of RMVB to be as perplexing as a lack of MKV support to would be to American users.
What? No .gif support????
Lol, it's not 1978.
I wonder if it supports animated PNG though, not many things that do support PNG actually support animated PNG too, which is odd since the code is basically there already if something supports PNG
Nice box. No support of HD audio though so I'm glad my PCH A110 still has value!
For everyone complaining about the shape, it simply ensures that the thing is on top of everything else. Much like the curved PS3, you're not gonna rest anything expensive on top of this, and well, if you do, you're rather talented at balancing things.
Anyone know what subtitle formats it can handle, doesn't mention any in the Press Release?
Im happy they did NOT make it into a box shape. That would have been really "no duh" and boring. this design is awesome and placed next to a ps3 and wii many curious eyebrow shapes will be made. :)
I'll wait until the software stops being buggy before I get excited about the hardware product, thanks.
This is a bit of a hijack, but what is the cheapest DVR-like device that will record OTA HDTV?
I love Boxee and I am excited for this device. I have Twittered Avner an told him that if they would add Digital TV receiver and DVR functions to record that signal. I would dump my cable tv and go totally Internet and terrestrial TV
just becuase it supports flash 10.1 doesnt mean it can run it, I have flash support on my wii, and when i surf flash sites on the built in opera browser i often get an out of mem error, so you need the ram to go with it.
but must say that the UI is the best loooking so far on media players, interesting finally a company that pays attention to the software and UI and not just the hw specs
Will it be able to run 1080p, unlike the Apple TV?
add to cart.
At $200 I don't care how it looks, I care about its features. There are a million other media aggregate boxes out there these days - I've seen several in this discussion that I've never heard of, and I like to think I'm more savvy that most end users - So if you want something sleek and sexy, the world is your oyster.
What I want is a 1080p capable silent Linux box that plugs into my TV and just works. All my audio and video are on my Windows fileserver and my TV shows are on my MythBox so storage is not an issue. Since the Boxee box supports Flash 10.1 and Netflix streaming, two things that are not available in Linux at this time, I'm a little worried as to what the base OS actually is. I guess time will tell.
Does Boxee work wirelessly with your home router? Is a "G"-type router good enough, or do I need "N?"
Cool design; it looks like it's been partially osmoted into the table!
will it have XSUB Support?
Well I'm not sure how "NVIDA" action might drive 1080p video, but i think it may be more likely to have a Broadcom HD Accelerator than an Nvidia ION.. I could be wrong however, but what with all the talk of AppleTV and XBMC getting Broadcom HD working, I woulda thought it'd make sense...
This thing looks pretty sweet.
I'd pick this up if my PS3 didn't do most of the things this box does...
Will it have HDMI HD audio passthrough (DTS-MA, TrueHD) ?
If it is using an Nvidia Ion I doubt it. If it is using a non PC based, true HD video chip (e.g. Sigma, Broadcom) it should (and will run at 5-10 watts).
I'll take 12
neat.
does it support 1080p mkv files? it just says HDTV so im curious..if it does i hella want one.
Does anyone know if Last.Fm on this is just like the one on the XBox360 where is will cycle through pictures of the currently playing band, have info popups available, etc?