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Boxee Box Pre-Orders Start At $229

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the a-little-late-i-think dept.

Engadget is reporting that Boxee is taking pre-orders at $229 for their set-top box that is utterly guaranteed to not fit into any stereo component rack you might have. They also have switched chipsets from the Tegra 2 to the CE4100. I'm not sure about this thing, but I'd sure like to play with one as I lust for the day when every piece of media I have can be played from a single device. I suspect it'll never happen.

5 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. 'All in one media player' exists already... by Lukano · · Score: 4, Informative

    Seriously, the 'all in one' solution you dream of exists - in XBMC. A cheap Atom/ION nettop for ~$200, install XBMC (live, ubuntu, win7, doesn't matter) and go to town.

    1. Re:'All in one media player' exists already... by FrYGuY101 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not trolling, but how's 1080p x264 playback with that setup? I have a Popcorn Hour A100 (old-school) that does it all except DTS audio... :\

      Fantastic.

      The important bit to note is the ION. If you have a NVidia GPU, you can use the Live or Linux (And at this point, I think the Windows version supports GPU acceleration) versions, and if you enable VDPAU (Or the Windows equivalent), and it will happily accelerate the video. I get full 1080p playback with no dropped frames or stuttering on a Asus AspireRevo that is almost completely silent.

      --
      "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."

      - Seneca
  2. Re:Intel CE4100... Where Can I find more about it? by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hardware acceleration. The CE4100 is an integrated CPU + GPU package from what I can tell - the Atom core itself is kind of weak, but the integrated GPU on that particular part is what handles all of the heavy lifting for VC-1, MPEG-2, and H.264.

    A normal Atom CPU can achieve the same thing when paired with a capable video chipset - however it usually doesn't have a capable video chipset paired to it.

    --
    retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  3. Re:It's not a settop box and it's not a setbottom by jeffmeden · · Score: 4, Informative

    So you make a device that's stackable, and you know that a good number of customers prefer to put their equipment in a cabinet, and yet you blame the customers when they do so, the device creates enough heat to cook it, and it fails?

    Problem 1: not enough fans or vents / device designed for too low of a temperature envelope
    Problem 2: No hardware fail-safe / device can go into thermal run-away and not shut down before permanent damage is done

    I say that lack of very easy fixes for these two problems are *definitely* the manufacturer's fault.

  4. Re:It's not a settop box and it's not a setbottom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I prefer the open source PS3 Media Server myself.