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Boxee vs. Zinc vs. Hulu
For those with a Windows PC and some time for TV, DeviceGuru writes "Which is the best Internet media streaming application for a media-center PC? Boxee, Zinc, or the new Hulu Desktop? A post at DeviceGuru.com reviews these three media streaming platforms and draws some interesting conclusions. Key pros and cons are tabulated and numerous screenshots are included. Interestingly, despite lots of Boxee hype, Zinc already has a number of valuable features that Boxee is scrambling to add to its next version, due out in the fall. On the other hand, Boxee boasts far more third-party content-access applications support."
Are these stand alone apps or WMC plugins? I have a windows vista (I know, I know, but I've had a ton of issues getting mythbuntu to work and work well) box running the Media Browser plugin, and it's a really awesome set up. It automatically adds my new media to its library (this is a basic WMC feature), it pulls movie posters, cast information, and all relevant metadata from IMDB... it's just all in all fantastic. I'm not looking to add another standalone program to my HTPC box, but I would be fine with adding hulu TV if it was a plugin and worked without stepping on the toes of Media Browser. The hulu site says it's optimized for WMC, but seems to indicate it is a standalone program. Does anyone have experience with it?
I prefer Plex over all of those. Surprised it was not included.
Why settle for a bunch of DRM streaming that they will pull the run out from under you at any time. Most of the content is available to be recorded or you can rent. Either it will not have commercials or MythTV will automatically skip them. You get to pick what happens.
Agreed that they aren't too useful for me, but Boxee does torrents and runs on Linux, so it's really my only choice of the three.
Put identity in the browser.
Since none of them support OS X unless you have an Intel processor, I'm ticked at them all. XBMC DOES, but so far I can't get it to stream Netflix OR Hulu (there are ways, but they require you to have another computer and to purchase Playon...FAIL).
Look, I'm not going to shell out hundreds of dollars just to have a media center computer. I happen to have some older hardware that is suitable for the task. PPC support makes sense because I think a fair number of people are walking the same path. So until Boxee gets off their collective butts and decides to support PPC, I'll pass.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
Why isn't there some company in another country trying to do the same thing? Won't be as much American TV, obviously, but surely there are European companies trying to make a European(-country) version of Boxee/Hulu/Zinc.
Other than the livetv part, there isn't much to love in mythtv. Mythvideo is *horrible*. It doesn't have much in the way of automatically finding and acquiring metadata around your local media. The navigation menu assumes one big flat folder with everything in it. While it does work with directory trees, you end up having to click through that to get the video. Boxee really shines here -- it separates TV series from movies, and for tv shows, groups them according to season. This was exactly what I wanted. When you add new media, in myth you have to go an select scan from the setup screen while boxee is always watching for new media and it just shows up under the recently added section.
While the alpha does crash every now and then (the 0.12 has improved a lot for me) what I'm struggling with is the need for the fglrx -- the LTS fglrx support on my ati 9500 pro was horrible (freeze the screen, took 5 reboots to get stable from power on) -- I'm currently on 9.04 with xorg from 8.10 and that's been working out quite well now.
The summery first talks about the PC and then about a platform. Which is it?
For the PC I prefer MPlayer-plugin with Firefox. As a platform I use my Linux hosting and as a player I use http://www.gdd.ro/gddflvplayer.html
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.