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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.
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.
their set top box that is utterly guaranteed to not fit into any stereo component rack you might have
Did someone from Boxee get in a fight with slashdot's corporate overlords?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
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.
Design Fail! They need to fire whoever green lit that design...
And for that reason alone I won't get it. I love the idea but more than sick of "edgy" for its own sake. Mebbe I can come up with a new business that creates a case it will slide into allowing it to fit on everyone's furniture.
I've love to see the Boxee Box succeed, but its price point is pretty high compared to its competitors. The WD TV Live set-top is half the price, and the Roku HD player is even less. A netflix/youtube enabled BluRay player is comparable in price, but includes the BluRay functionalities. Ditto for a PS3. I realize that the Boxee may have other functionalities that set it apart from the others, but I'm not sure if the average user will realize that.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
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
HTPC = every piece of media you have can be played from a single device.
With the advent of how powerful (and inexpensively) you can build miniITX systems now, plus being able to buy 2TB hard drives for around the $100-$110 mark, building an HTPC has never been cheaper, easier, or smaller.
Living With a Nerd
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.
This one works for me.
http://www.captiveworks.com/cw4000hd.php
One of the advantages of the PS3's otherwise ridiculous use of Bluetooth for the DVD remote is that the whole console can be out of site. Mine sits vertically behind the TV which gives it lots of room to breath and since it does triple duty as media server, Blu-Ray player, and gaming console it means that I really don't have much cluttering up my entertainment center; just a cable box and a stereo receiver.
Why oh why would they make it so fiendishly hard to place one of these things?
how about ventilation issues with idiot consumers not heeding warnings about stacking devices, and then filing warranty claims when they break?
TVersity + PS3 (or Xbox 360) = unlimited entertainment.
Living With a Nerd
make it very big. medium size impresses no one. Think how important you will feel if you have to replace your TV stand just to accommodate this.....
The case is a box, with one corner lopped so it sits at an angle (hence the part in the summary about how it won't fit in a rack.). As if this weren't enough to make it call attention to itself, the default color scheme is carbon and acid green.
The design is meant to sell to people who want to show off how they have one, and create consumer envy as a way of moving more units. The problem is, some customers will be turned off by that - for example, they want a device that blends with the others in their viewing room. The color scheme makes this effect worse - after a certain point, the Boxee Box is already distinctive, and has caught the attention of that market share that values gadgets standing out from the crowd - so more distinction will only cost them customers. Acid green is a color that came into style briefly a few years ago, and is now dated to the people who have strong interior decorator modes and really care about such trends - using it this late in the trend cycle comes off a little like making the device in the customer's choice of Almond, Harvest Gold or Avocado.
If they had kept the price under 200$, all that might have flown, with sales to the college dorm crowd and the general youth market, but with the new price point, the design is aimed at a slightly older demographic, one that will actually care about this sort of thing.
As final proof that the Boxee Box isn't going to sell well, I'd buy one, even at the new price. It triggers geeklust in me. The very last tech-thing I bought was a Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver replica (Matt Smith version). Does that sound like a real market exists?
Who is John Cabal?
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?
*glances at my popbox*
*sighs*
"Update: We just learned that Amazon will be selling it for $199, though the MSRP will remain $229.
At a rendezvous in San Francisco, Avner Ronen told us the decision to abandon Tegra 2 was about performance and nothing more: "The major problem we had with the Tegra 2 was support for high-profile HD playback," he said. "You can do high-profile VC-1 with Tegra 2, but not H.264." It was a problem of bitrate, he told us, and while NVIDIA's dual-core Tegra T20 was apparently not up to the task, the team had internally tested Intel's CE4100 decoding streams at up to 90 megabits per second. The newly revamped Boxee Box is now capable of 1080p H.264 playback at 60fps, and... well, that's actually about it."
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Block Diagram here.
That "Multi Format HW Decoder" block is probably Imagination Technologies' VXD core.
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.
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.
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
Tell that to the mainframe guys.
Maybe it's me but does anyone else think that the design might be off-putting to consumers. It looks like it's missing pieces. Remember consumers judge by first impressions more than technical specs. I remember one lady was flabbergasted that the original iMac wasn't just the monitor. She couldn't believe that it was the whole computer and thought it was magic even though many companies including Apple have been selling all-in-one desktops before.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
SGX is a 3D accelerator only. I'm sure there is something in that system that is doing video acceleration, but the SGX isn't it.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
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.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Where in a rackmount in a datacenter? Ooooh, you mean "out of sight".
That said, I'd like to have a bluetooth remote for my (future) HTPC... Can you get anything like it, I searched a bit but didn't find anything. Most seems to be infra-red and using a cellphone isn't ideal.
I prefer the open source PS3 Media Server myself.
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.
Um, I bought a Mac Mini in 2006 that does exactly that.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
I've got an HTPC setup myself... I use boxee mainly with an MCE remote, and a wireless keyboard (when needed). I've been considering switching out to a general device, and if it weren't for my utter despising of Sony, would probably go the PS3 + TVersity route. The 360 works too, but the PS3 adds BluRay. I've done 360 + TVersity, and it works pretty well. I do prefer Boxee over about everything else at this point, but do wish that some of the apps were a bit better consolidated, and the feeds worked a bit faster in some of them... The Revision 3 app is about the best one available... I've never gotten much use out of the "friends" portion of Boxee though, and don't really care to broadcast everything I watch (I disable this). Just adding some worthless commentary to the fray. One thing I do want to do as soon as it's available is order the separate remote.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
I tried to use Boxee on the Mini attached to my TV for a good month before giving up in frustration - it was buggy as hell, crashed daily, refused to recognize any of my media without them being named in a maddeningly specific way and without them being organized in a manner that IMDB would be able to parse without any manual override. Practically every fix required a keyboard and mouse to implement which completely defeats my assumption of how a media center is supposed to work.
I'm assuming they've fixed these problems? Because as it stands, you'd be flat-out nuts to lay down 200 bucks for something like that.
Behind the tinfoil
GENERATION O98346: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and remove a random number from the generation. T
uh... so I turn it on its side, what did that gain me exactly?
Its a cube. It is also taller than many other components in most TV stands which are modeled to hold dvd players; most are slim; and receivers/av which stack nicely with other components.
This device is just odd for odd's sake. At least the new Apple TV is black meaning I no longer have to work to hide it, it blends now.
There just is no point in making this device in the shape it is. Its more gimmick than anything else.
Oh, Amazon sells it for $199 and has the dimensions and pictures
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0038JE07O
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I've found that it works better in some ways, but worse in others.
Sometimes my PS3 has trouble finding it, while TVersity never has that problem. TVersity's use of bandwidth is also far more efficient, even if I crank the quality way the hell down on PS3MS--high quality standard-definition movies will halt frequently to buffer with PS3 Media Server over my 802.11G wireless network, while TVersity can usually play 720p over the same connection with only rare hiccups.
On the other hand, TVersity doesn't always like to transcode files, sometimes simply telling me the format is not supported, and PS3 Media Server has better thumbnail capabilities.
Overall, I'll take the watchable TVersity over the often unwatchable PS3MS. If I ever get around to running a cable from the router in the basement to the PS3 upstairs, though, I'll probably switch.
This happens when you combine the Weighted Storage Cube and Alien acid blood.
We both said a lot of things that you are going to regret.
Boxee is a fork of XBMC with social networking addons much like what Apple has just been credit for inventing.
The Boxee box would be a nice box if not for it's "we aren't going to let you put anything else in the media cabinet" approach to design.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.