Boxee Box Pre-Orders Start At $229

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.

Comments

It's not a settop box and it's not a setbottom box

[jeffmeden]

Why oh why would they make it so fiendishly hard to place one of these things? Is it really aesthetically pleasing to have to dedicate the whole cabinet under your TV (if you even have one) to this awkward device?

I for one want to see more devices that stay 100% out-of-the-fucking-way. Let me hide it in a low profile cabinet. Let me mount it BEHIND my TV if I want. I bought the TV to look at the TV... I bought your device, TO KEEP LOOKING AT THE TV. Sigh.

Here's a novel idea

[Theoboley]

It's a box right? You don't want it sitting slanted to one side?? Turn it on its side. NOW it'll fit into your AV Cabinet.

Re:The Anti-Slashvertisement?

[Hijacked Public]

Taco has this thing about emerging media player technology where he establishes a nearly impossible set of requirements and then denegrates each new hardware release because it does not meet each and every one of them.

For whatever reason it appears he builds a media catalog consisting of as many disparate file formats, sizes, bitrates, pixel depths, containers, and codecs as he possibly can then salts them out across spinning hard drives, thumb drives, burned CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, 3.5" floppies, SSDs, and Firewire interface Zip drives, all attached to a network, some segments of which are token ring, via a smattering of obscure operating systems. He complains when no one builds a device that caters to his specific blend of geekery. This thing won't upsample a full duplex ogg vorbis DVD rip in NTSC to 1080p and simultaneously serve it to my laptop and video ipod running rockbox? Think I'll wait to buy.

You'd think he would have learned his lesson with audio, but he did not.

Re:Every piece of media played from a single devic

[UnknowingFool]

Second, a mouse is infinitely better in your living room than a remote.

I think many people would disagree with "better". A mouse is better at a computer interface than a remote but most people don't want a computer interface when dealing with a media center. If you're watching a show and you decide to fast forward, how do you do that with a mouse? Program alternate buttons? Also with a mouse you need some sort of surface. Some people don't have coffee tables or end tables and that's how they like it. Most consumers use remotes because it's rather simplified. A mouse while workable isn't what they want.