After CES 2010, IPTV boxes were all the rage. Google TV, Boxee, Apple TV, and others were set to change the way we consume content. Lights shone, cameras snapped, people oohed and aahed, and the promise of cheap content boxes was on every reporter’s lips.
Well, it’s been a long and rough road. Nearly two years later, content boxes aren’t nearly as entrenched as everyone thought they’d be.
The reason why? It’s the content, dummy.
Platform fragmentation
There is no end-all, be-all set-top box. Yet. There has been saddening amount of fragmentation on the internet TV front; you only had certain options if you want to watch your favorite program. For example: Doctor Who was originally only available on the iTunes store, thus you needed an Apple TV to watch it. Things are getting better as shows come online for various networks, but still; you may have trouble finding exactly what you’re looking for if you only have one box to choose from.
Well, D-Link wants that one box to be the Boxee Box.
The open Box
Look at Boxee Box sittin' there all crooked and smug
Boxee Box is more than just a device; Boxee is an open source HTPC platform that can be built and installed by anyone, for free. Anyone can build a HTPC and install Boxee on it.
For those of us, however, who are less inclined to piece together our own HTPCs, D-Link did the dirty work, and sells a $179, tiny, all-in-one, low-power little box that sits prettily on your shelf and pumps out 1080p digital content to your HDMI-capable display. It also comes with a wireless remote that has a full QWERTY keyboard on the back.
Specs:
- Intel CE4110 system-on-a-chip platform (that has a 1.2Ghz Intel Atom CPU with a PowerVR SGX535 Integrated graphics processor)
- 1GB of RAM
- 1GB of NAND Flash Memory
- HDMI (version 1.3) with HDCP support, optical digital audio (S/PDIF) connector, and RCA connector for analog stereo audio, two USB ports, an SD card slot
- Wired 100Mbps ethernet, and built-in 802.11n WiFi.
I was given a Boxee Box unit for review over a year ago. Yes, I’ve been sitting on it that long. Here’s why: I didn’t want to review it until it was ready for a good review. Let me explain.
When I first got it, the interface was slightly shoddy and there was no support for the major apps that most people would want to use; especially Netflix. The YouTube app was wonky, and most of the apps that were available were really just front-ends for websites that weren’t optimized for big-screen remote controls. It was a bad experience, and it would have been a bad review. After nearly eight months, the Netflix app finally became available and things started to improve greatly. I was almost ready for a full review, but Boxee kept releasing updates that improved the content selection, interface, stability, and general experience. Finally, with Vudu 1080p HD rentals, I felt it was time to sit down and write this.
The Boxee Box remote
The fact that the same device has gone through such a dramatic transition since I first got it is testament to the power of Boxee: As an open source platform, updates are essentially assured for as long as the device remains relevant. D-Link could go out of business tomorrow and the Boxee Box would still be valid and would continue to receive updates. Netflix is now a seamless experience, the YouTube app works beautifully, and many of the apps are actual apps now instead of crappy front-ends.
One of the best features of Boxee Box, besides the tiny (and highly unique-looking) form factor, is the remote. The super thin, comfortable remote has a full (albeit small) QWERTY keyboard on the back, which is leaps and bounds better than remotes without one; we also have an Apple TV, an Xbox 360, and a PlayStation 3 at ICHQ and all three could be considered viable media centers, but the Boxee is the one we default to, and the keyboard is a major factor.
Boxee Box’s main interface consists of channels: You can select Apps, Shows, Movies, Friends, and Files. Most of the action happens in Apps. This is where you’ll find things like Netflix and Vudu.
The current most popular Apps on Boxee
There are something like 400 apps; many of them are foreign language. Many of them are also very obscure and of questionable usefulness (endless Kitten pictures and whatnot), but the important ones are all front and center. There are also adult channels available (more on that in a minute).
I’d like to take a minute to specifically mention Vudu: A full HD (1080p) movie rental service is a massive convenience. The movies look perfect; although they are a bit pricey (you can rent HDX movies for $6 or buy many of them for $20), they stream flawlessly if you have any sort of reasonable internet connection.
VUDU's selection is enormous
The QWERTY keyboard is a killer app for casual mindless YouTube browsing. Searching for a video is made infinitely easier when you just start typing and YouTube’s smart auto-complete does the rest—way easier than pointing your way through an on-screen keyboard.
The Boxee Box runs completely silent and sips power; having it on standby 24-7, with a very snappy wake-up time, is absolutely no concern for your power bill.
The Boxee Box has some other neat features: You can surf content on other computers and send links to your Boxee account to “watch later” on the TV. When you get home and crash out on the couch, you can click the “Watch Later” button and a list of your previously-selected links shows up so you can just watch your hand-curated channel at your leisure. There’s also a social feature which allows you to see what your friends are watching and share links with them. The Pandora app will continue to play music in the background while you surf the web, if you like. There are also iPhone and Android apps to turn your phone into a Boxee remote as well. The optical and SPDIF audio ports are also a very nice addition for those with high-end home audio receivers.
The Boxee Box has absolutely no problem powering through 1080p content. It will decode H.264 at 60fps. When we originally saw the Box at CES 2010, it was sporting NVIDIA Tegra 2 SOC. At the last minute, they switched it to the Intel/PowerVR combo because of performance issues with Tegra 2. No more performance concerns.
Competition
The one major thing that sets Boxee apart from other media players that it competes with is the open nature of the platform. Boxee probably supports the most formats out of any media player out there, and has no limitation to external storage. You can hook it up to a network share, stick an SD card in there, or tether a USB hard drive to it and it will play basically anything you throw at it. If you’ve encoded your DVD or Blu-ray library (you lawbreaker, you!) Boxee will play the files. It has no content restrictions either, but does have a voluntary adult lock feature if you’d rather keep the kids out of the porn channels (and yes, porn channels such as YouPorn are indeed available).
Against the Apple TV, the major advantage is 1080p support; the Apple TV is only 720P. Besides that, you are limited only to content that can be played on an iOS device or from the iTunes video store. If you live in an Apple-centric universe, this is not an issue, but for many it will be.
Against the Roku Player, the Boxee Box has a web browser, the aforementioned QWERTY remote, and support for more apps and file formats.
Against Google TV, well; Google TV is just kind of lame, let’s be honest.
Against all of them—and yes, this is a matter of opinion—the Boxee Box is by far the coolest looking. It’s definitely a conversation piece, this little crooked box.
Limitations
The biggest limitation right now is lack of Hulu Plus support; Boxee will not be the complete media center go-to without it, because a lot of people want their TV shows. There has been talk of Hulu Plus on the Boxee forums for months, but nothing concrete has happened yet. Recently, Microsoft announced content partnerships with several major media companies (Including Hulu Plus, Xfinity, HBO Go, and SyFy) that may position the Xbox 360 as the top competitor to the Boxee ecosystem; Microsoft has the clout to make licensing deals that Boxee cannot.
The day where there is a single unified box to play all content may never come. A hybrid solution will very likely be the only way to truly cut the cable—either that, or give up the idea that you’ll be able to watch every single possible show you could ever want. However, at only $179.99, the Boxee Box could definitely be the centerpiece of a hybrid system; along with an Xbox 360 (and hey, don’t forget you can play games on that!), the duo probably represents the pinnacle of online TV-based entertainment—one with which you can indeed cut the cable.
Unfortunately, there is still no One HTPC to Bind Them, but Boxee Box comes damned close. We use it more and more at ICHQ; Netflix looks great, the remote is killer, and 1080p HD movies on Vudu are very nice. For $179.99, that’s not a bad deal at all.
Back in 2010 we named it one of the top five best products at CES, and I’m glad to report we were right. We’re happy to award the Boxee Box our Icrontic Outstanding Product award for exceptional value, great design, and excellent features.
Boxee Box is available at many retailers: Amazon
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