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Time To Ditch Cable For Internet TV?
itwbennett writes "A flurry of announcements from YouTube, Boxee, Dell and Clicker on Thursday brought good news for anyone considering canceling their cable service in favor of internet TV. First, YouTube announced that within the next few days it will start offering full 1080P HD streams; better than your cable company can offer. Next, Boxee announced a 'Boxee Box' that promises to make it easier to get the content off your computer and onto your TV. Or you could hook up Dell's Inspiron Zino HD instead. 'This is an 8" x 8" PC running Windows 7 (with an option for Ubuntu) that you certainly could use as a desktop machine, but the form factor just screams 'Hook me up to your TV!' via its HDMI port,' says Peter Smith. And, last but not least in this roundup of announcements is the launch of Clicker, a programming guide for internet TV that aims to help you find what you want, when you want it."
What's your setup? Do you dual boot into linux or what? I've been thinking about a PS3 since it seems to do almost everything I want. Hulu is blocked I know, but I believe you can transcode video, store it on an external drive, and then play that. If only it had a torrent client and a transcoder, it would be perfect.
The sad thing is, linux is good because it handles most codecs and you can ignore drm with it (big win), but it always seems like getting 1080p and 7.1 surround out, and blue ray playing is iffy.
You're right. When you buy it, it only lists windows, but when you look at the tech specs it clearly lists the supported operating systems as:
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
Genuine Windows® 7 Professional 64-Bit
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic 32-Bit
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium 64-Bit
Ubuntu® Linux® 9.04
Strange.