Free (legal) TV, minimal advertising and a slick, usable interface... too good to be true? Yes, of course.
Boxee's solving for the future with its newly announced Boxee Payment Platform, which will arrive this summer. Users will be able to buy shows, movies and channels with "one click on the remote," with content owners having control over package types (pay-per-view, subscription) and prices. Boxee will naturally be taking a cut, but says it's lower than the now de facto 30% cut of app stores. Boxee sees this co-existing with free, ad-supported content, authenticated stuff like
TV Everywhere, and of course regular Cable, Satellite and IPTV providers. We suppose the real testament to Boxee's success in pulling this off will be the variety, quality and price of the content it obtains -- we can already get a smattering of shows and movies on iTunes, Zune and PSN, but if Boxee can get us more, make it easier, or charge us less, it's going to be hard to complain about that funky little
Boxee Box taking up valuable shelf space in our living room.
posted January 20th 2010 11:43AM
No wonder Hulu keeps disappearing.
It will be interesting to find out if they were able to come up with an 'a la carte' TV deal. I would do this in a heart beat if so.
the first movie in the queue is "The Fall" ... awesome movie on BlueRay .. just wanted to point that out :D .. haha
Apple could destroy Boxee in one move, just release a App Store for Apple TV.
@nathanjm: Uhm... no.
@nathanjm HA! Firstly, I own an Apple TV and I use a boxee interface on my desktop connected HDTV in another room. The Apple TV is too limited in power and versatility to compete with Boxee's new device. The introduction of Boxee's remote with the Qwerty keyboard will also obliterate any hope the apple tv has at competing with said device given the prehistoric nature of the current remote (unless you own an iphone or ipod touch of course). I would love for Apple to have a competiting device but then again I've lost my faith in the Apple TV being capable of much of anything anymore. Why should I be spending hours converting content so I can watch it on my Apple TV when I can start up Boxee and instantly watch my movies. And let's not even get started on Boxee's superior content organization...
@Alan Strangis Care to elaborate?
@lukad Point taken, I should have said the Apple TV hardware would need a upgrade too, i've got Boxee running on my Apple TV and the performance isn't great.
Don't get me wrong, I love Boxee, it's got great potential, but I think if Apple introduced the 'App Store' model to Apple TV (along with a hardware upgrade and updated 4.0 UI) it would do really well.
I think we'll probably see another iteration of Apple TV, then a actual 'Apple TV', probably in 32" and 42" versions, with all the Apple TV set top box functionality baked into the set.
@nathanjm I heard that Apple is coming out with a new tint color for their TV sets. They'll have the yellow tint featured in the 27" iMacs, but they're also adding green!
@nathanjm: Sure... First, Apple would need a new version of the AppleTV that supports 1080p. Second, Boxee's application platform is open source, and also allows importing of any audio/video RSS, and automagically formats it for the 10 foot interface.
Boxee also has wide codec support, something AppleTV is HORRIBLE with, unless you've lived your whole media life inside Apple's ecosystem. Even then some content has to be converted to work on AppleTV.
The underlying principle of Boxee (carried over from the XBMC days), is that you should be able to access whatever you want, whenever you want. The only restriction to accessing online content are the restrictions that content providers impose on it, such as Hulu.
There are many better options than AppleTV, ranging the dirt cheap Asus O!Play Air for straight up file playback, or for less than $500 get an ION based system that does absolutely everything, including the ability to watch/record live TV via Windows Media Center, and use Boxee for all your online media, all via a universal remote. Though more expensive, an HTPC is likely going to be the most future proof in case some new codec comes along.
In short, AppleTV is overpriced and under-spec'ed, so it needs a major overhaul of both software AND hardware to be in any way interesting.
I've tried Boxee Beta on both Windows (7 and XP) as well as Ubuntu. There is a lot of promise but a lot of polish still to come. Netflix and Hulu don't work at all on Linux (for various reasons, not all of them Boxee's fault) and there is a lot of lag when starting videos.
By far the biggest win is it's ability to provide meta data for, and organize, downloaded content. Seeing all my various CSI files organized by season and episode with pictures and descriptions of each episode was pretty awesome.
If they get it together and get it right on the Boxee Box it'll be a sweet service and I'll be in for sure.
If they can get enough stations on board and allow users to buy channels a-la-carte, this would be a huge f-you to cable companies. I would cancel my directv in a hot minute.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one level, I know it is necessary to get the revenue stream somehow, and I would gladly pay for some online content if it means the end of the cable model. On the other hand this could also signal the end of free ad supported content, even though on the Boxee blog Avner said that will still be part of the model.
Going off-topic now: So far, the Boxee beta feels like a step backward to me compared to the Alpha. I do not like the new interface. I much prefer XBMC. If Boxee would allow skinning, or at least create a few alternative skins in the base package they might get a wider audience. Something like the current XBMC default skin with a new section for the Boxee Apps would be really nice.
one click purchasing 'belongs' to Amazon. Boxee gonna get sued for this.
I have Boxee beta and it doesn't get any better than this package. It organizes everything for you... What else could you ask for. I would by the remote on it's own in a heartbeat. You mean to tell me that it's included? Well thank you kind sir don't mind if I do!
Will their tv and movies be in HD? That's the deal for me. I have the beta, I need to install it and play around with it. I would love to ditch cable, but love my HD.
If i was the owner of this application software system
I would rename it to...
Boxxy
I can't wait to get this thing! Sounds awesome! I've already cut cable...hate Time Warner with always raising prices ( I do miss some channels though but overall am happy I did it). But with my antenna and my Tvix dvr to record all my shows I'm set! Now with Boxxee I can stream more stuff to my TV!
lol, not going to happen.
Basically content providers are going to shun Boxee and no-one is going to license content via them.
If they wanted to play footsies with content providers they shouldn’t have crapped all over Hulu for the last year and ignoring their requests.
They should have followed the Neulion model if this was their long term ‘money making’ goal.
Alternatively they need to invest in CDN’s if they want to go the brighthouse/akimbo model (Not sure Union Squares pockets are going to be that deep).