Slashdot Mirror
Boxee Scores $16.5M Investment
DeviceGuru writes "Boxee, maker of the free Boxee multimedia-player software platform for PCs and Macs, and the smarts behind D-Link's recently introduced Boxee Box, has just received $16.5 million more funding. Following several significant firmware updates and the addition of new apps for Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and other content sources, all pushed automatically out to users' devices, the $199 D-Link Boxee Box is finally stating to feel more like a finished product than a beta-test device. What's next for Boxee? The D-Link device will soon be joined by two more Boxee-powered devices: a Boxee NAS device from Iomega and a ViewSonic TV running Boxee, and one of the main uses of the company's new funding will be to 'sign up more device and distribution partners,' says Boxee CEO Avner Ronen."
Now they can buy even more Slashvertisments!
I don't see an RF out, Video out, or S-video connector?
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
They can use some of that money to build the rest of that stupid-ass looking semi-box they put their device in.
Et tu, Brutus?
http://af.reuters.com/news/pictures/articleslideshow?articleId=AFJOE56900Z20090710&channelName=#a=1
I'm sick of boxee constantly advertising that it has a hulu app. There is no official hulu app for boxee. You have hit or miss hacks that may let you watch hulu. It's not like netflix.
Good luck! I'm behind 7 Boxxies!
My buddy bought his wife a Boxee Box as a present last Christmas. On Boxing Day they returned it. Why? Here in Canada, most of the content is unavailable due to region blocking. They should stop selling the thing here in America's hat if you can't use it to its fullest potential.
I hope they know many times that amount of needs to be returned some day.
I would like to see as little outside money enter boxee as possible. There are always strings attached, and open functionality always suffers. I would rather they sold drugs to support their software and hardware development.
Anyhow, did google give up on it yet?
all hail to our queen
Korma: Good
As a Boxee Box owner from almost day 1 of its release, I would say they finally made it out of the alpha stage and into the beta. While I love it, it is still riddled with bugs and poor design choices. Plus, as a non US resident (like the other 90% of the planet), Hulu (which btw, doesn't exist on Boxee), Netflix and Vudu mean nothing to me. I originally bought the Boxee Box because I believed it would be more open (ie. the firmware being open to hacking), as opposed to the other options where they are based off closed sourced code exclusively. Sadly this isn't the case. While I'm able to download the source for Boxee and fix the bugs, I'm unable to apply these fixes to my Boxee Box to make sure they are working 100%. This disappoints me. I can understand their need to make the content providers like Netflix and Vudu feel safe, but what about the other 90% of the market that has no access to these features? Why not go the Chrome route where you have one official build that supports the American content, and then still allow the Chromium builds that exclude the propriety stuff for a more community driven endeavor? I actually seethe with rage when I hear the Boxee team praising their support for American video service X. So what? Many other devices on the market already have that ... it isn't anything new. They are only diverting resources and alienating non US based residents to support the minority. And don't even get me started on them supporting new devices when they can't even get their flagship product working properly...
Well, given their company, I think that Boxee's next move will be to apologise and tell me that their services are no longer available in my country.
May the Maths Be with you!
I actually held back.
Anyone on SlashDot is twice as intelligent as necessary to setup an XBMC install that would blow Boxee out of the water. I bought three Boxee Boxes and sent all three back, don't regret it for a second.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
When pricing for playing video on a PC or device like this is different I am never going to remove the Computer from my living room. Why pay more to see the same thing on another box?
Ya, thanks for making it un-stackable - horiz or vert. (sigh)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
a little do it yourself and you don't have to watch commercials on shows you record among other niceties.
First, good for them (Boxee), and I wish them success in their niche. That being said.....
I've been using the Dell Zino with Win 7 Media Center for several months now (since Sept 10) with wireless keyboard with trackball. The Zino is an extremely small box (8 in x 8 in) with a HDMI connector, so it plugs right into the TV. As far as I know, it does everything the Boxee does, plus more because its a regular Windows computer. Vudu, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, Slashcontrol, etc all have regular web interfaces (plus Hulu has the Hulu Desktop client), so everything can be accessed just by opening a browser. I use the desktop app for Hulu. Plus, I can play all my DVDs and CDs that I have ripped to my NAS from the Win 7 media center. As I mentioned in a previous post back in Sept, I am having very good luck with the vanilla Win 7 media center that comes with Win 7 Home Premium. The user interface is easy enough for my 6 year old to operate it without assistance. No trans-coding or format translations required to play DVD rips. I have my video library (DVD native VOBs) backed up on a 2 TB NAS (WD My Book World Edition, which is a Linux box that you can admin through the web gui or SSH and to which I have installed a CUPS print server ). Everything plays perfectly on my three Win 7 media center clients and on my Vista media center client (Vista requires an easy registry hack to get the DVD library to show up, Win 7 needs only be pointed to the NAS). Again, these are straight DVD backups with no trans-coding. The good thing with this is that all the DVD menus and special features are available. I have removed the dedicated DVD-player from the living room and use the DVD drive in the Zino now instead. There is essentially no fan noise (you literally have to put your ear up next to the machine to hear the fan).
I added a Hauppauge tuner so I can use the Zino as a DVR [analog cable and unscrambled digital only, although it picks up digital HD broadcast too ] . I had bought the upgraded HDD on the expectation of saving lots of recorded shows, but now I realize I didn't need it, because I can move recorded shows to the NAS if the HDD starts to get full. For the next purchase, I'll keep the standard drive.
So, If I was going to spend $199 for another box to hook to a TV, I'd spend the extra $100 to get the Zino (low end is $299). The extra functionality is probably worth the extra $100.
So far the only real annoyance that I've had, is that when Windows updates itself, the video driver sometimes get confused and fubars the HDMI audio to Media Center (but oddly not to the rest of Windows). So I have to regularly (probably at least monthly) ensure that I have the latest video driver.
I also have to say I've been favorably impressed with the WD Mybook World Edition. Nowadays, they include a checkbox in the web gui to enable ssh. You can then ssh in and do anything you want with it. In my case, I replaced the busybox setup with a full system using optware (ipkg), installed a cups print server, and attached a printer to the USB port. So far it has been able to serve up different movies to three different clients simultaneously over my home network without any problems.
I use a power-line Ethernet adapter because I perceived it to be easier and more reliable than wireless. The kids go to a separate room to watch their own stuff on their computers and I was concerned about flooding my wireless network by trying to stream multiple DVDs/online videos to different rooms, so I went with a wired solution.
i have a bad DRM feeling about this
And see a gigantic douche bag?
And just imagine if Canadians had developed a box like the Boxee. Only Canadian programming would be available on it, and if it was sold in Quebec it would be French only.
For a minute, I thought Boxxy became a millionaire. That could have been a real news for nerds.
Why bother with this when you can buy a used, 4 year old computer, plop in a $50 video card with HDMI out, and get more functionality for roughly the same price? My single core 3ghz PC runs everything I throw at it after I bought a new video card, not to mention High-Def gaming (because, you know, you really have to run Minecraft in 1080p to fully appreciate the level of detail..), whatever audio library you want, and *real* internet functionality.
Ronen's inclusion of 'social' stuff in his software feels creepy. It's bad enough Netflix knows what I watch; I don't want Avner (and his customers) looking over my shoulder as well.