boxee gets Lost
according to Torrentfreak Lost was the most downloaded TV Show on Bittorrent in 2008.. ABC has two other shows on that Top 10 list (Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy). it is clear ABC is producing great content, and it is no surprise that our users want to stream it on boxee.
we have released a new version of boxee for Mac that includes support for ABC, click here to download. we hope to release an Apple TV version within the next few days (not available for Windows and Ubuntu).
we strongly believe that given the option most users will opt to stream a TV Show (with a reasonable amount of ads) rather than using a file-sharing service. Â especially now that they can get most mainstream network content through boxee.
the online streaming offered by ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, etc. has made great progress over the past 12 months in terms of quality, breadth of selection and release windows (i.e. the time it takes for the show to be available online after it originally aired). in my opinion they have created a great alternative to file-sharing networks. if they want to really eliminate illegal downloads they should release it simultaneously online (in HD) and remove the geo-restrictions, but i’ll save that discussion for another post.
subscribe to blog
join boxee
boxee on twitter
Awesome! I can’t WAIT for Windows support. Thanks for such a great app!
I second that!
Bring on Boxee for Windows with Netflix and ABC support….
preach on!
boxee is the best, slowly i watch more and more tv on boxee. and i actually watch the commercials because its easier than fast forwarding.
i wish they would release the shows at the same time they air too.
i agree re the release window. they should have it available online as soon as it airs
This is great. I’ve been testing on OS X for a while and just got a Windows invite so it’s going on my HTPC tonight. I’ve been waiting a long time for a product to come along that ties all the disparate service together and Boxee is it. Great work guys!
For practical purposes, downloading is still better for some than streaming. There is no way we can stream HD in my house because of the internet connection, and I don’t mind waiting for the higher quality. Paying for iTunes content is obviously one way, but an ad-supported HD download would be extremely welcome. TV heaven, in fact.
it’s all coming. users will have more options than ever to get their content
For us folks in Canada (and other non-US locations) this isn’t very useful
I would like to be able to stream additional content, but for now I am content to download my favorite shows. I also have a PVR (with 30 second skip even)that I use occasionally, I do download more than I record. Once in Canada though, this could be enough to cancel my cable (download in HD for the good stuff and lower quality for the rest)
More US only content. Very frustrating.
“(not available for Windows and Ubuntu).”
Curious, is this a technical implementation challenge or just priority to the largest install base?
I am wondering the same thing, I hope we get ABC on Ubuntu version of Boxee soon, I have been waiting for that.
I understand that the boxee team is limited on man power, and from what i see since the beginning of the project i believe that an “only mac” path is going to emerge more and more. Sadly.
For the love of boxee, please! Version numbers!
0.9.8.4880. you’ll usually find that info at http://forum.boxee.tv
version is 4880. sorry…
Awesome work guys! I get more and more impressed by each added feature. I received my windows invite today so I can’t wait to see this feature spread out to the other versions of boxee. Out of curiosity, is the eventual plan for boxee to release new versions simultaneously for all OS? I could see some advantages to releasing to a smaller group first (say Apple TV) before releasing other versions. Then again, I guess that is the point of the early access users discussed back in December…
I’m proof of “streaming rather than download”. I watch only a few shows, but never in real time since my schedule doesn’t allow it. I used to download them via Torrents, but can now watch them on Boxee on AppleTV. So, I don’t bother, it’s so much easier.
One problem though, I find that the motions are not smooth, there is some jaggedness. I assume it’s bandwidth related (or AppleTV processing power)…
Now, if we could only get Netflix on AppleTV, I would be all set (I know that is not on the to do list, unfortunately. But one can hope!).
Netflix on Apple TV is on the TODO list, we just didn’t figure it out, yet..
I have certainly cut down on torrenting due to availability of shows through Boxee. I have said it before but your team is amazing. I was wondering how you were going to pull this off. By the way, Hulu running under flash on Apple TV has been made quite impressive. It is darn-near flawless. I’m excited for the ABC.com content to get to AppleTV.
thanks. we’ll try to get ABC on Apple TV soon
Great stuff! Kudos to ABC for playing ball, too.
Now if only they’d lift the geo-restrictions. Unfortunately, with them in place, this is useless for me (and others) in Singapore, so back to file-sharing-land we all go…
If they’d put an override in for Boxee to allow us to stream anywhere, that would be an epic win
This will never happen. Don’t blame Boxee or ABC. It’s the way shows are financed. A major portion of the production budget is paid for by international broadcasters who own the rights for particular territories.
true, but i think ABC and the international right holders can come to a rev share agreement that will remove the geo-blocking.
as it stands today those losing the most from the geo-block and release windows are the broadcasters and content owners
That’s great and all that you guys are adding new features, but how about getting to some of the really basic bugs? Like, I don’t know — PAUSE?
we’re working on bug fixes as well… what stream does not pause for you? what platform are you running on?
please email the details to support AT boxee d0t tv
There is no need for me to go and do that, because it is well known. For example, Hulu on linux does not pause. Known issue — it’s already in the forums and repeated as a known issue. It’s been broke like that for at least a month, maybe more.
I’ve been around, downloading new software for a while. That’s what made me an early adopter and hence alpha tester for boxee. This software in particular seems to have the slowest bugfix cycle of any I’ve seen that’s in alpha/beta stage. And when there’s a release it’s — of course, to brag about some new plugin. Where is the changelog of all the crap you fixed since the last release, weeks ago?
I don’t mean to be difficult, it’s just incredibly frustrating because there is so much to really like about this application. Then something insanely simple as not being able to pause, or to have the whole app crash mid-way through a show (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – Hulu), or crash & burn when I try to play an mp3 — the fact that I can’t depend on this thing for more than an hour’s worth of use, is just sad.
I should also point out I’m an XBMC user on the very same platform, and it is rock solid. Being that it is the base which you add your extra plugin codin’ on, it’s really surprising things aren’t much more stable (I’m speaking beyond just the builtin flash player troubles here, things like crashyness).
I second this.
It seems like the team is too busy adding features to impress investors and not concentrating on making a functioning software.
If other platforms are not important to you, don’t create a version for them. This is basic Google business; do very little, very well.
I’ve removed Boxee from my HTPC until bugs start getting dealt with. The most important part of social networking projects is the users. Users don’t seem like a priority.
Here’s another vote for simultaneous releases on different operating systems. Linux users get no love.
I’m grateful for the boxee team releasing the code as it is ready.
Asking for simultaneous releases means them either having to work much harder getting all the code done faster (which is unfair to ask without us paying this software) or they would have to hold back code until all platforms are ready.
Release it when its done, fine by me.
So I download this in my ATV or what? This is always confusing. Will it show up in the downloads menu?
Thanks and great news.
No, this is Mac only for the moment.
As mentioned, one way to dramatically reduce pirating and get people to actually watch a commercial or two, would be to open up streams to outside the US. Most people I know are torrenting TV shows because they have no other choice.
could not agree more. it’s a straight forward business issue that they need to take care of.
How viable would it be to add proxy support to boxee?
Some people may see that as a way to bypass the geolocation restrictions, but of course nobody would be interested in doing anything illegal…
Hulu and the broadcasters (ABC, Fox, etc.) own sites are not usable by people outside the US. They ’say’ this is due to contractual issues with regards to sales of their programmes to international markets. However, those broadcasters in international markets which have bought these programmes do not themselves offer streaming within their own regions because they also say they don’t have rights to do so.
In other words if you are outside the US you cannot legally stream these programmes from anyone!
The morons in charge of the broadcasters need to realise the following -
1. The Internet is global
2. Torrents are available globally
3. Making it easier for people to illegally download, rather than legally stream is utter stupidity.
Note: I don’t use torrents.
Alas because of the stupidity of the broadcasters, much of Boxee is as useful to non US residents as a bicycle would be to a fish.
When a broadcaster licenses a show, they pay a hefty amount for territory exclusivity. Streaming rights are negotiated separately. If a US broadcaster were to allow streaming of content within that territory, the int’l broadcaster would argue that their rights had been diminished. It’s a gray area and is getting grayer every day.
I live in Guam. ABC’s shows stream just fine from ABC.com, but when I try to view them using the new Boxee, I get the message that the videos can only be streamed in the United States. Guam is part of the United States.
I’m curious why would they stream fine from ABC.com, but not from the ABC section of Boxee? Hopefully this is something you can fix for the Apple TV version before it is released.
Thanks,
iMacazine.com
looking into it
When will we get ABC on linux?!
the Move player (used by ABC) is not available on Linux..
Since using Boxee, I have stopped using File-Sharing to grab content that is available for streaming with Ads. I canceled cable 6 months ago, and really have no problem watching a few ads to view the content. The content I used to get from file-sharing the most was The Daily Show and Colbert, but I know watch it exclusively thru the Boxee interface, plus I feel much better watching the content legally and supporting the creators. I had bought a few season passes to both shows via iTunes, but I still found it to be a hassle plus extremely over priced at $2 an episode. Between Netflix and all of the content channels within boxee, I don’t really have any reason to file-share anymore, and that feels good.
I think the biggest potential roadblock for Boxee’s future is the number of users claiming to want to cancel their cable subscriptions. Disney/ABC makes a lot of money from cable operators (several orders of magnitude more than they earn from streaming advertising). If cable operators complain loud enough, you will see broadcasters ratchet back on their online offerings or potentially impede the progress of aggregators like Boxee.
Thanks folks. Definitely making my ATV worth the money.
I think my favorite thing about watching boxee is that I dont have to sit through two minutes of Enzite commercials.
A few months ago, my biggest reason for not streaming TV shows instead of downloading the episodes was video performance. I had a Powerbook G4 that didn’t play nice with most in-browser-video. Since getting a new machine, I always opt for streaming videos. Theh videos look great (Fox, I just noticed, looks REALLY good), and stream well.
Also, I don’t have a TV so maybe that’s another reason I jump to streaming
Good Job! Thanks for your excellent tool! Unfortunately, most of the contents like HULU, CBS and even videos from MTV are only available within the USA. The same will happen with ABC
Please consider also to include ABC NEWS NOW and CBS NEWS VIDEO! These contents are also available outside of the United States. Thank you!
I hope the Boxee Community will be capabale to form various developers groups which will start to create new plug-ins for different languages.
For the German speaking area the focus should be on these contents:
- ZDF Mediathek
- ARD Mediathek
- 3Sat Mediathek
- Phoenix Bibliothek
- SF Videos (Swiss Televison)
- IPTV ORF.at (Austrian Television)
- WDR Mediathek regional
- MDR Mediathek
- RTL Now
- N24 Mediencenter
Each country should have a developers group which is focussing on the prime content for their area.
I would love to see
- UlmenTV
- mtv.de/videos/
too
and prosieben.de, sat1.de
Great news! Some more requests: Fora.tv, Charlie Rose, NYTimes video, FoxNews — any streaming sports.
Thanks and keep up the good work!
The Netherlands + Ubuntu = no love from boxee
At least that’s the impression I have been getting when it comes to many of the latest updates and announcements. It feels as if the team is taking a very cautious approach when it comes to the Linux port or issues such as international content. And this quite limits boxee’s appeal in my opinion.
Are these matters that the team is working actively on or is there a bigger expectation towards input from boxee users? Such as the case with the original XBMC, where a variety of user written plugins popped up catering to international users with local content.
It also makes me slightly worried as to what the potential would be of the previously proposed boxee-box. As it most likely wouldn’t include Apple hard- or software we’d be looking at either Windows or Linux, the latter being most likely following the trend of other hardware media devices. Why would someone like me, based in Europe, buy a boxee-box if it’s missing a chunk of content, partly because of the limitations when it comes to the included OS and partly because of geographical restrictions?
Perhaps I’m overlooking a lot, I’m just feeling a little Lost here. Pun intended.
we have released developer.boxee.tv that should help developers add their own content/apps to boxee.
our team is too small to go after all the different content providers in all countries.. so we’ll need the community’s help
Thanks for the straight answer and pointing us in the right direction. Perhaps this is a good enough excuse to get interested in coding, as to provide local content for boxee.
simular o ip de UK. Somebody know?
waiting for appletv version
thanks!
\o/ Wohooo….
Yet another REGIONAL feature that will only work if you happen to live in the same contry as the Boxee Dev team…
Im starting to have a hard time understanding why Boxee have been released as a international product when the main focus of the product is to develope features that are regional….
Whats the meaning of having a friend in lets say US or UK that are watching a regional video stream…this stream is then forwarded to all of that persons friends (maybe he will even recomend it) however all of the friends that live in another country will not be able to watch the video so why forward that information at all ?_?
when we launch the beta we’ll make sure that if a user does not have access to certain applications/content he will not see it.
as mentioned before boxee is a small team and it is very hard/impossible for us to support content from all countries. we’ll need some community help to get there, and this is why we launched developer.boxee.tv
I’m running windows Boxee on my htpc and am very excited about what i have seen so far. In terms of internet content, what makes me most happy is that streaming certain shows (The daily show) through Boxee is a lot smoother than streaming from Hulu or Comedy central.
The geo related restrictions are unfortunate, (though I am happy to be located in the US) it would be great to at least get someone like BBC on board to stream internationally.
Cant’t wait to see Netflix on the windows version.
Great job over all, keep it up.
I was just wondering how long until aTV gets to watch lost via boxee?
I would really love to see the support of some European (especially German-speaking) content as already mentioned above by digiradio.
It is really frustrating for us (Swiss in my case) to see all the great content from overseas that we can’t use over here.
Until the content you already support will be also available here in Europe (which will take some more time for sure) I hope there will be at least some plugins for Boxee and the ATV to support our own European content. ARD Mediathek, ZDF Mediathek (German Television), SF.TV (Swiss Television) and so on…
I found an awesome place for watching season 5! http://leafpen.com The only catch is they make you fill out a survey but that’s it! I’ve been going there since last week!
Any word on ABC.com for AppleTV?????? eager to view that …. Thank you everyone that has helped Boxee!!! BOXEE ROCKS
Boxee is great. I can’t wait until the ATV version is ready. Hope it is soon.
I cannot find ABC.com under videos. Is it just me?
So, I am unclear if boxee ever added support for abc.com on Apple TV as indicated in the article would be coming soon…
ÑпиÑки кандидатов, выдвигаемые партиÑми политичеÑкими и избирательными объединениÑми (блоками) Ð´Ð»Ñ Ð²Ñ‹Ð±Ð¾Ñ€Ð°Ñ… в предÑтавительные органы, проводимые Ñообразно пропорциональной избирательной ÑиÑтеме.
[...] to do as much of my TV watching via Boxee’s media center software as possible, the fact that Boxee is adding Lost and ABC’s streaming shows to its lineup doesn’t mean much to me personally. I’ll be more psyched when more news and really old [...]
[...] of the major broadcast networks into Boxee, for at least a majority of their most popular shows. boxee gets Lost [Boxee [...]
[...] of the major broadcast networks into Boxee, for at least a majority of their most popular shows. boxee gets Lost [Boxee [...]
[...] Boxee announced today that it has added support for ABC. This will be good news for Lost fans, which is the number 1 downloaded TV show. The bad news from what I hear on Twitter is that it is not streaming in HD. It is only Mac right now but plan to have the update for AppleTV soon. [...]
[...] Product [Boxee] [...]
[...] [via Boxee Blog] [...]
[...] [иÑточник: Boxee Blog] [...]
[...] VÃa: Blog de Boxee [...]
[...] Watch Lost plus other network television on your Mac or Apple TV live + Free Dark Chocolate Raspberry something or other from Quaker Oats + Free federal tax prep and [...]
[...] Boxee is releasing a new update for their Mac version today that allows users to stream content from ABC. The release is timed to coincide with the season premier of LOST, which will be available through ABC.com the day following the broadcast. The Apple TV, Windows, and Linux updates are in the works. I’m not-so-secretly pleased to see this update out on the Mac platform first. [...]
[...] Boxee has just announced ABC TV programming access [...]
[...] media streamer of the week, Boxee, just upped the ante a bit with ABC streaming support. Currently only the OS X flavor has the ability to stream Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate [...]
[...] of the major broadcast networks into Boxee, for at least a majority of their most popular shows. boxee gets Lost [Boxee [...]
[...] says it well : “in my opinion they have created a great alternative to file-sharing networks. if they want to really eliminate illegal downloads they should release it simultaneously online (in …, but i’ll save that discussion for another post.” Boxee Has a Great UI/Interface/Font/User [...]
[...] Boxee is releasing a new update for their Mac version today that allows users to stream content from ABC. And the first show to be released first was (surprised-surprised), LOST. I’m still using my old ways of watching LOST season 5 though (can’t tell you the details here can I?) [...]
[...] propose les derniers épisodes de Lost via ABC, donc totalement légalement mais géoclocalisé (pas pour les Français [...]
[...] a great quote from boxee’s Avner Ronen when they added ABC to the line up: we strongly believe that given the option most users will opt to stream a TV Show (with a [...]