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Boxee 1.5 Will Be the Last Supported Desktop Version
DeviceGuru writes with excerpts from the article: "Boxee released [a beta of] version 1.5 of its free multimedia streaming software for Mac, Windows, and Linux desktops today, but simultaneously announced that it will cease offering the Boxee desktop software after January. Thereafter, the company will limit its focus to devices such as the D-Link Boxee Box, which faces stiff competition from multimedia streaming TV set-top-box products such as the Roku players, Google TV, and Apple TV. Hopefully, the XBMC project, on which Boxee's software is largely based, will carry the ball forward for desktop users. Speaking of which, the first preview release of XBMC 11.0 Eden was just released."
As someone who currently owns a bricked Boxee Box, I'm somewhat pleased they're finally focusing on just the Boxee Box, because that thing seriously needs some love. It was really cool for the first month or so when it worked, but the forced firmware updates brick Boxee Boxes left and right (according to the forums). The browser is absolutely terrible and isn't supported by Hulu, the "mouse" on the remote is one of the worst things I've ever used (try using arrow keys to move one pixel at a time).
They have a lot of work to do if they want to be in the media center market.
XBMC is some really great software, I'm glad support has lasted this long. It's what I use on my TV PC, it's easy to setup, and does exactly what it's supposed to do. It's got some great plugins that allow live streaming from various sources, supports any format I've thrown at it, it's a DLNA server, supports various network protocols for indexing and streaming, supports many remote control devices, it's available for all major OSes and works great on all platforms. I'm extremely happy with it.
Twinstiq, game news