Boxee box to come to Blighty

D-Link's Boxee-branded set-top box will go on sale in the UK on 12 November. D-Link Boxee box The blocky box will be priced at around £200 and connects your TV directly to the Boxee IPTV service. Boxee's software is based on the open source media centre software XBMC. D-Link Boxee box The box has HMDI for the TV …

[Geoff Campbell]

That's going to stack well....

Still, I guess that's what you get when you leave case design up to the newly recruited graduate design wonk. Ho hum.

GJC

[Code Monkey]

It does look nice, though

I agree it's not the most practical of shapes but it is pretty. I've got a PS3 though, so won't bother buying one.

[Anonymous Coward]

What an annoying shape

Is this to stop people from putting their cups of coffee on it?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you'd spend £200 on one of these because?

When a PS3 costs the same price, does everything it does, and a darn sight more....

[68K]

It doesn't though, does it?

I have a PS3, and even though it *can* play a ton of formats, the interface is awful and is very slow. I have a lot of music and a lot of photos, and the PS3 struggles to cope. And drilling down to a particular photo album is a right pain.

It also doesn't aggregate web video like Boxee does. It also consumes a LOT more power.

The only thing I don't like about the Boxee Box is its price. Once again the UK consumer gets hammered - in the US it's $200. Here, it costs the equivalent of 60% more.

My brother's just ordered one of these in the States. If it's good, I'm getting one.

[johnnytruant]

PS3 doesn't do it all

You can't play video from an MKV container on a PS3. Or anything using soft subtitles, even though MP4 can supposedly contain a sub stream, the PS3 won't recognise it. Try adjusting out of sync audio/subs on the fly on a PS3 - one of the best features of Boxee/XBMC, imo. Yes, you can transcode/remux on the fly from media servers on your network, but you need some pretty hefty hardware to do that with HD video.

Another attractive feature of these little Atom/ION systems is they suck about 30W maximum power, and a mere handful of watts when not doing anything. A PS3 draws some 200W+, according to my energy meter. My HTPC (same hardware as the Boxee box, different case) is totally silent - yes, PS3s are quiet, but still audible. It's nice to not have any sound at all coming from a device that lives in the front room.

Not sure how customisable the Boxee systems are, but my XBMC system also runs a number of handy always-on services like a local wiki, webcam, file store, upnp server and so on. It's not a media client like the PS3 is, it's the house's main media server.

Don't get me wrong, I love my PS3, but it solves a different slightly problem to a dedicated HTPC. The only media-centrey thing my PS3 does any more is play blu-rays.

[Anonymous Coward]

You need your PS3 fixing

or your energy meter, As mine draws 70w

I can also stream MKV just fine without the need to transcode... Seems like the Boxee employees have worken up with the fud.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he's using an older PS3

Perhaps a phat one which has never been updated for ages. I don't blame him tho- A PS3 would make an excellent HTPC if Sony hadn't taken away the Other OS function.

[Anonymous Coward]

You've clearly not used xbmc.

That said, you can get an ultra low powered pc (~10 watts) for less than this, that'll do hd and the like. Dead handy for nas+media+scheduling.

[Oli 1]

Blah!

Im actually looking forward to playing around with this, it looks to be a great little device for people who dont really know what theyre doing and just want their media streamed.

I setup Boxee on a few old pcs around my families house and they love it, the software is great and this new hardware is fresh and funky, my sister can remote control any of the rigs from her jesus phone i can use my android when i drop in from time to time and dad can use his ipad or this new remote.

Loads of people offer media centres, but most have a big flaw when you starting digging around, boxee seems to just work how i'd want it, except some hardware is not supported properly, i guess all that will be put to bed with its own hardware config now.

Drop the price slightly and i'll have one please :)

[Chimpofdoom!]

Fail..

I was originally contemplating one of these back when they said it would be cheaper.. but for £200.. pass.

[Efros]

Add another 100 quid

and you'd pretty much have a decent HTPC, which will do a helluva lot more than this fugly box!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called "product differentiation"

Just about anyone can put XBMC on an Atom board, some people delight in having a stack of little boxes doing digital entertainment/communication things next to the TV, and some people will buy one of these because it does what they want and they like the way it looks

[JEDIDIAH]

meh I say!

> It's called "product differentiation"

I don't want my Living Room content consumption devices to be "different". I want them to be INVISIBLE. This includes working as expected with minimal problems or need to fuss.

A melted cube that doesn't play nice with the rest of the AV components does not fit the bill.

Otherwise it's a good concept.

[simmondp]

Rip-off UK pricing

Amazon USA $199.99 Amazon (and others) UK pricing £199.99

Us folks in the UK are getting ripped off.

[Rogerborg]

Cheers for (apparently) proving the source code

Jeers for requiring a login to get it. Not really in the spirit of "any 3rd party", is it?

Meh, £200. Get it under a ton, and we can talk.

[David Haworth]

XBMC

I'd like to know if XBMC would go on it, as I'm not all that keen on the boxee interface, nor do I want my tv and film watchings to be socialised. if it was completely supported by the normal XBMC itself, including skins and plugins then I'd be interested...

esp if they supported HDMI audio output and preferably decoding HD audio into LPCM too!

[Neill Mitchell]

Hmmm.

I think the attempt to look funky with the sunken cube effect is pretty silly. Adults will think it daft and teens will see it as a poor attempt to look cool.

[Drefsab]

meh

Lol sure the ps3 plays some media but what about mkv? The most widely used container for HD content ATM and your flat out of luck if you want to use it on the ps3. You have to use 3rd party applications to ether reencode or transcode them. Oh and forget about using ambassador shares on the ps3.

[Efros]

Re Meh

I have a $90 Argosy box hat will stream from TVersity and play MKV natively. so even $200 dollars is over the top.

[Wize]

Looks like someone was cutting corners in the design.

Ok, ok, I'm getting it.

[Mevi]

I really like Boxee, but...... £200?

I run boxee, et al on an Acer Revo 3610 running W7 that I paid just a little more than £200 for.

They gotta get that price down or it's doomed.

[Anonymous Coward]

IP vision Fetch TV whatever its called...

Is a Dual tuner freeview HD+ PVR...with 320GB builtin HDD, it will play media from the HDD, a USB device or a networked Media Server via wire or built in Wireless... you can export recordings to USB or access via a web browser and download. Select channel 'BBC' (222) and you get iPlayer select 'Sky'(759) and you get skyplayer. It costs £199 from tesco.

I dont get why Boxee is targetting £200?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we get away from

..."set to box".

Maybe on my old clunky 32" CRT, but on a modern screen the Wii bar only just about balances on top (with help of Blu-Tak), let alone a melted pc.