boxee for windows, moving up to the Major Leagues
We have a few exciting announcements today (which makes for our longest blog post ever).
#1 – Boxee for Windows
We are finally releasing a public alpha of boxee for Windows. We are looking forward to getting feedback from PC users, so we will be ready for beta later this year.
Boxee is now available for Windows, Mac and Ubuntu users, and our goal is to keep the 3 platforms in sync as we release updates and upgrades.
#2 – Major League Baseball
We are excited to announce a partnership with Major League Baseball (MLB.com) to offer MLB.TV Premium to boxee users.
MLB.TV Premium on boxee means you can now watch thousands of baseball games, live and on-demand in HD (where available). on top of that, MLB.TV Premium offers DVR functionality to pause and rewind a live game. MLB.com represents a big step for boxee as we hope this is the first of many different live sports offerings we can bring to you. We hope other sports follow MLB.com’s lead of giving fans a choice of how they enjoy watching their favorite teams….
#3 – New navigation layout
We have changed the navigation in boxee to be more streamlined. There is a clear separation between Internet and Local media, so it is clear where you can find your local media and where you can access apps like Netflix, MLB, Pandora, etc.
In the new version you will see:
Applications, which has all the Internet content.
Local Media, which lists all the media on the computer and the local network
#4 – Digg
Digg constantly drives traffic and conversations around the web. They are doing the same for video, and it seems like a perfect fit for a boxee experience.
Over the past few weeks we have been working with Digg to create a ‘Digg for TV’ experience, where you can see the most popular videos, as well as what is up and coming.
A future release will also enable users to Digg stuff directly from boxee.
#5 – Tumblr
We love Tumblr at boxee. We thought enabling users to stream music and view slideshows from the people they are following on Tumblr would be a cool experience on boxee, so we worked with them to build it.
We will continue to work with the Tumblr team and you should expect more Tumblr features on boxee soon.
#6 – current_
Current works with a young adult audience to create and distribute great content that is relevant, informative and inspiring. They use a two-way approach to media, and combine Citizen Journalism and viewer participation with professional, rich content to create a unique viewing experience.
We think it’s a great fit for Boxee. The Current app includes the participatory movie review show (The Rotten Tomatoes Show), the weekly media-focused variety show (infoMania), the original documentary series (Vanguard), and the half-hour animated series (SuperNews).
#7 – 1080p for Ubuntu running Nvidia
Great news for users of boxee on Ubuntu. If you have Nvidia that supports VDPAU you will now be able to play HD videos (up to 1080p) utilizing Nvidia’s hardware acceleration for H264, MPEG2 and VC1.
#8 – bug fixes
Like with every new version we are trying to make progress on stability and performance. In this release we have made changes to almost every piece of code we have. Hopefully fixing more bug than creating new ones..
Major Changes with this Version Since Public Release
- Improved playback of Internet streams.
- Introduced VDPAU hardware acceleration on nVIDIA GPUs under Linux (major kudos to Team XBMC for this one).
- Fixed M4A and M4V playback support.
- Fixed low volume during video playback under Mac OSX and AppleTV.
- Performance improvement and lower CPU usage under Mac OSX.
- Enhanced codec support, improving overall playback of all media.
- Improved DVD playback.
- Official Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jacklope support.
- PulseAudio support under Linux (shaky, but works).
- MP3 files indexed based on id3 tags.
- Sorting ignores “The” at the beginning of a movie title.
- Fixed uploading avatar at http://app.boxee.tv.
- Improved slideshow controls in pictures.
- Fixed avatars, first name, last name not updating in login screen.
- CNN application displays runtime and date/time published for each item.
- Selecting a Screensaver Slideshow Folder no longer causes a hang.
- Empty Settings Pictures Library tab.
- No longer show password when adding SMB source.
- Fixed crash when setting Interlaced Handling to Deinterlace.
- Fixed default download path under Download > Settings (Linux).
- Fixed some Internet videos failure due to “Error creating demuxer”.
- Fixed fast forward and rewind not working from MCE remote.
- Fixed click on Read More or Settings from OSD causes Boxee to freeze.
- Fixed case of Flickr contact getting deleted unexpectedly.
- Fixed changing the weather location not converting the number.
- Fixed pasting a long URL into new feed dialog exceeding the dialog boundaries.
- Fixed Screensaver Preview crashes.
- Fixed Windows clipboard for other applications stops to responding after a paste in keyboard dialog.
- Fixed ability to change the visualization preset when playing a song.
- Fixed Jamendo application showing release date as 1970-01-01
- Fixed missing mouse cursor on Boxee startup.
- Fixed missing OSD buttons when playing a video from Browse menu
- Fixed case of multiple instance of Boxee running
- Fixed first attempt to Add Contact under Flickr and Picasa failing with script error
- Fixed skip or stop playing an Apple Trailer causing a crash
- and several more…
- 64bit platforms are not officially supported.
- Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 is no longer officially supported.
- Microsoft default OpenGL driver is not supported, download proper driver from your respective hardware vendor, e.g. http://www.intel.com, http://www.nvidia.com, http://ati.amd.com.
- Power PC (PPC) not supported.
P.S.
A note about the use of proper Upper/Lower case in this blog post: As part of our effort to make Boxee more friendly for the mainstream consumer (and frankly to stop the angry emails i keep receiving from the grammar police) we are abandoning the only corporate policy we ever had: lowercase only.
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You guys are doing a great job! Great update!
Ummm… guys what happened to all the apps that used to work in the last Windows alpha in this new one???
they should all work. you may need to remove your UserData folder if you can’t see the apps
Thanks for this update!!!
WTF!? MLB?? Neat-0!
I used to live in Oakland, and have been to many A’s games. However since I’ve moved to Montana, I’ve hardly seen them play at all.
thanx guys!
ps. on my blog, I typically post all lowercase. but occasionally I give in to convention and capitalize stuff.
Does the new version support avchd (H.264) video format used by many camcorders these days? If not, are there plans ot implement this?
Boxee is a fork of the open source XBMC Media Center software which it uses as an application framework, so Boxee should support all audio/video formats and codecs that XBMC supports, which is almost all that are known to mankind, including AVCHD.
You can find a full list here:
http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=XBMC_Features_and_Supported_Formats/Codecs
Thanks for your reply, Gamester17. I currently have version 0.9.11.5777 on Ubuntu 8.10 and it isn’t recognizing my videos with the .MTS file extension (which is for avchd (h.264)) taken with my JVC Everio. They just don’t show up.
Try adding that file extension to advancedsettings.xml
http://xbmc.org/wiki/index.php?title=Advancedsettings.xml
Ask in the Boxee forum for its location, I don’t know.
where can i download the old version of the blog? the upper-case bug in this one is too much for me to deal with.
reverting to blog.boxee.tv 0.9.11.5694 asap!
Who won the dev challenge?
posted about the Winners. sorry for the delay.
Aww, that sucks about the lowercasing. Silly grammar police (read http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/ and weep, grammar grouches!)
But thanks for the new version! Great work
This really is a big step for boxee. As an an avid St. Louis Cardinals fan who lives out of market, MLB.tv is a lifeline to my team. With the inclusion of it in boxee, I just went from using boxee a couple of times a month, to three hours every night. This is a huge step for boxee and perhaps an even bigger one for the new ways we consume media. Thanks to Avner and the boxee crew for the hard work and for continually fighting for the platform. At the very very least, this boxee user greatly appreciates it.
thanks! we are very proud to be working with MLB. they are great to work with. forward looking and move fast.
hopefully it will also help us bring more sport content into boxee
No more support for Hardy Heron!?! That officially sucks.
I never noticed the poor grammar before… Remember to cap them I’s
lol
Yeah, losing 8.04 really, really sucks. I have Boxee on my file server, and I’d hoped to keep that machine on LTS releases only. However, since I have boxee in a 32-bit chroot anyways, perhaps I can just upgrade the chroot to 9.04.
i just found this software and thought it would be very interesting. so now you drop support for lts ubuntu? what is the point of this?
i guess i’ll just use xbmc.
p.s. you use px heights in your css? get with the program.
Graet update!
Although I think the navigation menu changes are going in the wrong direction. It’d be much more intuitive for mainstream consumers to organize it by type of media and abandon segregating local and remote content, especially as more and more people abandon local content. Want to listen to some internet radio? They have to be taught that that would be an “application”, instead of just clicking on “music”. Very non-intuitive. But more importantly for me, no fix for the iTunes library issues? Argh.
the beta will have a special TV Shows and Movies experience, Music and Photos will follow.
for now i think it is an improvement over the previous version.
removing support for the most recent Ubuntu LTS version? that doesn’t strike me as a good idea…
yes avner, i caved on the proper case a number of years ago. peer pressure. how sad. but great event and my thanks to justin.tv for the front row seat.
-ski
it’s about damn time you put out the windows version, why neglect the biggest f’n OS out there? pull your heads out of your free-bullsh1t asses, idiots.
@steeleydan I almost laughed when I read your comment, but then I realized that you could possibly be serious. I’m honestly baffled. Where do you get your sense of entitlement? Have you contributed to this project in some way?
@boxee keep up the great work guys. Glad to see it’s finally making it’s way to Windows so that I as well can enjoy it!
they should charge for Windows users after all these douches paid to use Vista
Very cool!
* Looking forward to checking if Hulu & other web video streams are now running smoother on Apple TV.
* Hope the cool web apps keep coming. NY Times today has a story about how paranoid TV & entertainment execs are about losing their cable TV revenue stream, which is no news at all to those of us participating in/observing the ongoing Boxee drama. But some of these recent non-Hulu web apps are so good that it’s beginning to justify my purchase & hacking of an ATV.
* Hoping Hulu, post MLB breakthrough, will now get cozy with the NFL so I can watch my long-suffering Saints. Starting to worry about the long-term side-effects of dragging my toddler to the sports bar every autumn sunday.
Thanks, Gamester17. The advancedsettings.xml suggestion worked.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! MLB.tv support is exactly what I have been looking for for a while now. It was always a pain to have to close windows media center or whatever 10 foot app I was using to watch games. FINALLY someone has been listening. Thanks!
Good Grief! Still no 64 bit support! Go Away!
cant wait to get the version for PC this is great news!
Thanks for all your hard work! Very exciting!
Any chances that support will be provided in the future for Windows Media Center Extenders? It would be great to able to watch content though Boxee streamed from my Windows PC in my home office to our TV in the bedroom. I really don’t want to have to buy a computer for the bedroom.
Norman
Hey Anver,
Really appreciate the work you guys are doing, and all the great stuff you are handing out to us for FREE.
But the new version is not as good as the old. I’d love a roll back. The forum link doesn’t work for me as I type this, or it would be sent there. I’m getting error 11 all night on local media, just plain shutdowns on other local media, and freezing on eg. MTV, shutdown on Current… (on ATV) this is meant to be informational and not a complaint! I am such a fan of everything you do and the way in which you do it.
thanks.
Brendo
Sh*t,
So sorry for mis-spelling your name Avner. Really rude and lazy
Brendo
I also think the navigation changes are a step back. Now my local content is more clicks away. It’s not a deal breaker but it’s certainly annoying.
Nice work!
I wish there was a way to skip to the next / previous music track with the Tumblr app. It would also be nice to see the text entry associated with each track so I know which band I’m listening to, who posted it, and their commentary.
Is the MLB.com agreement for broadcast only the out-of-market games? To whit, I’d still have to have a cable subscription to watch my local team’s home games?
I have recently purchased a mac mini and installed boxee on it for use in the livingroom.. and I have to say – you have created a gem! even though a lot of the services are not available to the uk, the ones that are – really work like a dream on a “37 LCD with the mac mini silently whirring away next to it!
Is there any future thought of integrating live tv in the future? using eyetv or similar usb stick tv tuners? I think this is the one missing link from replacing my XP MCE setup.. although I have installed Windows7 using bootcamp and have to say it works very well on the mac mini.. sorry Apple.. It had to be done.. just to see if it was possible.
Anyway TV integration for me would be awesome! keep up the good work and I look forward to more stuff soon.
live tv is great, and we look forward to more partners providing for this sort of content.
there is a 3rd party developer who made an EyeTV plugin you may want to look at – http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=2977
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