Multimedia-PCs » Boxee

Boxee TV, CBS Deal and iPad App

Jeremy Jones — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 19:31:11 +0000

Boxee has been busy expanding the reach of its software. I posted a few days ago that Iomega was building a NAS box with Boxee built-in. Today they announced Viewsonic TV with Boxee built into it, CBS content deal and iPad app.

As of now you have to stop by their booth at CES to get a sneak peak at it. Since I’m not at CES I can’t provide you with any pictures or video. If I see some being posted I will update here.

Iomega NAS with Boxee Software

Jeremy Jones — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 20:35:18 +0000

Iomega will be releasing a NAS with Boxee software loaded on it. Iomega will be the second hardware manufacture to embed the Boxee software. The current Boxee Box is manufactured by D-Link. The Iomega device is small and slim, kind of looks like a router. It will give you features of a NAS to store your digital media while also getting that media to your TV. It will come in three versions: No hard drive for $229, 1TB hard drive for $299 and 2TB for $349. I thought the no hard drive option might be the best but from the comments there is no way to add a hard drive to the unit. You can read more about it at the Boxee Blog.

Boxee Box Firmware Update

Jeremy Jones — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 03:55:49 +0000

Boxee released a firmware update for the Boxee Box. Most is bug fixes and minor improvements. They also added some 3D support. You can read about it on the Boxee Blog.

Improvements and additions:

* Enabling user flavor selection (online/local files inclination) during first login and via Settings
* Added alphabetical scrollbar for local files
* Enhanced sorting options in browse screens (A-Z, Z-A, most popular, newest/oldest…)
* Add Genre filter support for local files
* Mark movies as watched/unwatched from the Action menu
* Added option for hourly scan of SMB/UPnP/USB sources
* Added SMB client defaults to Network Settings
* When watching side-by-side or over/under video, the subtitles and OSD would not be visible when wearing 3D glasses. The user now has the option, under Settings, to have the user interface properly displayed when watching 3D videos

Bug fixes

* Do not de-interlace of video when the TV is in interlaced mode (e.g. 1080i)
* HFS+ volumes display UUID instead of volume name under some conditions
* Video OSD text background too small for text title when playing video with long titles
* When connecting to VPN, Boxee didn’t refresh region code
* Boxee doesn’t change DNS configuration when VPN is set up
* Can’t connect to hidden wireless networks
* Can’t connect to network using WPA passcode with special characters
* When Internet connection is restored, menu doesn’t show online channels
* DVD .iso playback aspect ratio incorrect
* DVD playback displayed some artifacts
* “Resume From” doesn’t work on DVD ISO/Folders
* Zoom on DVD (.iso and folder) video does not work as expected
.vob files playback (standalone files) is stuttering and low FPS
* DVD .iso playback over Wireless N: excessive buffering, playback speed issues, random exits
“Vietnamese” character set is misspelled in System Settings
* Show “Remove From Favorites” button in episodes list, even if no episodes are available
* SMB credentials are not saved upon restart
* Write failure when accessing Box-attached disk over SMB
* SMB file sharing of external HD size reporting is wrong
* Become unresponsive and hang during playback of AVC .mkv file from SMB mapped drive
* Crashes when indexing some videos inside .rar files
* Crashes indexing mp3 file with corrupt embedded thumbnail
* Stretch 16:9 and Stretch 14:9 not working properly
* Shoutcast and Radiotime: Switching stations or Cancel causes interface to freeze and console output to crawl
* Some .mkv files do not playback properly (some flavors of H.264)
* Support packed bitstream muxing mode in .avi
* Some .wtv files do not playback properly
* Constant buffering on 1080p BD .mkv files accessed wirelessly on Boxee
* Boxee crash when browsing into unidentified Files
* Playback choked and crashed during viewing of .mp4 file

Boxee Box Teardown

Jeremy Jones — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 03:53:35 +0000

The new Boxee Box, that is shipping now, got the teardown treatment by ifixit. There wasn’t anything new that was discovered but it’s still cool. They were impressed with the build quality comparing it to the AppleTV. I have always been a fan of D-Link and their quality products so it’s good to see that quality continue.

Boxee Box Available for Pre-Order

Jeremy Jones — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 01:35:12 +0000

The Boxee Box is now available for pre-order but there have been some changes. The MRSP is $229. They also switched to Intel chips instead of the Tegra 2, which surprised me but explains some delays. The Intel chips better support HD and H.264 playback. At least they waited to release the product until they were completely satisfied. Consumers of a device like this would have let Boxee know if there were HD playback issues and they wouldn’t have been happy about it. You can read all about the details over at the Boxee Blog. Amazon also has the pre-order for $199, which is what was originally announced from pricing.

Boxee Movie Libraries

Jeremy Jones — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:26:46 +0000

Boxee added Movie Library to the Boxee Beta. It’s like the TV Show Library, allowing you to add titles to your queue for later viewing. There aren’t any major labels but there is still a lot of content on there. I’m sure this is just a start.

EZTakes
No more searching high and low for art house, independent, classic and cult films, because EZTakes specializes in bringing hard-to-find movies to you. The EZTakes library contains nearly a thousand ad-supported titles ripe for the picking that you can watch on Boxee or virtually any computer, smart phone or portable video player.

IndieMoviesOnline
Since June 2009, IndieMoviesOnline has been streaming high quality independent films, documentaries, and shorts. Known for its fierce movie reviews and behind-the-scenes editorials of all the top box-office hits (and flops), IndieMoviesOnline delivers films from both mainstream talent and hot up-and-comers. With free access anywhere on the globe to hundreds of movies, there’s no excuse not to soak up these great indie flicks.

MUBI*
MUBI is your online cinema, anytime, anywhere. MUBI will give you the latest buzz from Cannes or a restored masterpiece personally chosen by Martin Scorsese (he’s a member, too!). A social network that can let you find a visual gem that will definitely not be released in the local multiplex, and allows you to find a girl in Tokyo who loves Kubrick (she actually exists, her name is Yuko and she’s into Wong Kar-Wai too…).
*NB: to access MUBI on Boxee, you’ll need to pair your account first.

OpenFilm
Openfilm.com is a fast-growing online community where filmmakers and film lovers around the globe discover and distribute independent film. Through its unique technology, live online chats, social network, extensive film festival database, unique member channels, and Advisory Board, which includes James Caan, Robert Duvall, Mark Rydell and Scott Caan, Openfilm unites the best elements of the film industry in one place.

Video: Production Boxee Box

Jeremy Jones — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:35:54 +0000

The Boxee Box is getting close to being available for order. The final production model was sent to Boxee. It still looks good and it said in the video that it will ship in November. The video is below for you to check out.

The first Box arrived from the Boxee Factory from Zach Klein on Vimeo.

Boxee Box Release in November

Jeremy Jones — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 02:42:52 +0000

The good news is that Boxee said on their blog that the Boxee Box by D-Link will be available in November. The bad news is it was already supposed to be available. While I have been waiting to pre-order the device, I’ll probably be putting that on hold until I hear more about the Google TV. I think Boxee could have had the advantage if their box was out, I think they are going to need help competing with the marketing of Google, Sony, Logitech and Best Buy.

Boxee Beta Now On AppleTV

Jeremy Jones — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:20:14 +0000

There are now simple instructions on how to get Boxee Beta working with AppleTV. With the latest version of Beta being announced it was stated that it wouldn’t work with AppleTV, unless you had a lot of time on your hands to make it work. This is good news for everyone wanting more out of their AppleTV. I’m glad Boxee was so quick to get it back up and running.

(via Boxee Blog)

Boxee Updates Beta

Jeremy Jones — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:26:49 +0000

Boxee has updated the latest beta build for the general public. The have fixed over 500 things in the new version. There were also some new things added as well.

* Multilingual keyboard support: under settings->appearance->region to add keyboards
* Significantly improved video quality of our DXVA support
* Regained support for older graphics cards (pre-2.0 pixel shader) which was broken after move to DXVA
* Improved file scanning performance
* Hardware acceleration of H.264 on Intel HD4500 cards
* Hang on FLAC tag read over SMB
* SMB crashes when canceling SMB operations
* Hang on shutdown due to wait for SMB and file scanner
* Hang in file scanner when manually scanning a folder
* Hangs due to excessive locks around database pool
* Hangs when left idle due to UDP sockets leak
* Corrupted graphics on some ATI cards (X1600)
* Log file cycling (every 32M, old log overrides boxee.old.log)
* Present action dialog when clicking on DVD icon to allow browse/eject
* Optimization to file scanning making it less IO intensive
* Fixes to iPhone remote keyboard under Linux
* Added support for m4b playback (audio books)
* Crash in ID3 tag reading (playback and background scanning of some mp3 files)
* Crash in some wav files which contained extra-info in the wav header (playback and background scanning)
* Crash on some rss feeds caused by mis-parsing of empty http headers
* Crash on image extraction from mp3 tags (in some cases)
* win32: fixed runtime error in some cases where vc90 runtime was not installed properly
* Dual screen issues. sometimes a movie would only show black screen when switching screens.
* Allow apps to define properties for rtmp streaming
* Playback of some internet video streams, mainly coming from playlists (partial read of the network buffer was causing wrong codec detection)
* Playlist playback of internet video streams was sometimes using the music player instead of the video player
* Playback of music from history (was not working and now it will open the folder played from)
* Logout was broken enabling logging-in even after password change (was using stored cookie)
* Win32: when launching boxee while another instance is running it will just bring the other instance to front

I have been using the new version for a little while and the overall feel of the Beta just felt more responsive. More at the Boxee Blog.

Multimedia-PCs » Boxee

Boxee TV, CBS Deal and iPad App

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Iomega NAS with Boxee Software

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Boxee Box Firmware Update

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Boxee Box Teardown

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Boxee Movie Libraries

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Video: Production Boxee Box

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Boxee Box Release in November

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