Boxee for the Holidays
While Monday’s Boxee Beta Unveiling has many excited about the upcoming Boxee Box (it’s quickly becoming gdgt’s most wanted media streamer), we know there are still many hoping to get Boxee to their TV for the holidays, and don’t mind using a mini-PC to do so. With nettops and netbooks on sale for the season we wanted to give you a few low cost computers that will run the Boxee Beta well.
We’ve mentioned the major improvements to the Boxee Beta’s back-end to help Windows machines with a dedicated graphics processing unit (GPU) run better looking video with less effort (thanks to the Direct X Video Acceleration & Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 support we’re developing). We’ve done a lot of work with NVIDIA to optimize Boxee for their ION platform which has a dedicated graphics chip to turn up the visuals on compact, low-power PCs with performance up to 10X faster than similar systems.
Here are a few of our favorites:
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| Acer Revo | HP Mini 311 | Zotac ION |
Keep in mind we’re talking about improvements in the Beta so the software won’t be available publicly until the beginning of next year (although you can sign up for the Beta Pre-Release list here), but if you’re taking advantage of holiday deals we want to ensure you’re picking up something that will benefit from the work we’ve done. While we’re talking gifts, here are a few others we like…
Give Netflix
If that special someone already has Boxee, you might think about expanding what they can watch by giving them a gift subscription to Netflix for access to thousands of Movies and TV Shows they can play straight from Boxee.
Give Anime from Crunchyroll
If there is an Anime / Asian entertainment fan on your gift list, save the money you were going to spend on that ultimate anime DVD package and instead get them an account at Crunchyroll.com – the largest source of Asian entertainment in the U.S. They’re running a promo now – pay with PayPal and get $20 back, which means a 3 month subscription actually earns you a nickel(ends today so hurry!).
**Update – Crunchyroll promotion extended through Monday.
Happy Holidays from all of us at Boxee!
–Andrew
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I was considering getting the tiny Fit-PC 2, but now I think I’m going to wait for the Boxee box. I just hope the Box will be shipped worldwide right from the start… well, at least to Germany.
Launch details are still under wraps
But DLink has presence in 127 countries around the world, including Germany.
Will the Dell Zino with the base graphics chip (ATI HD3200) be able to take advantage of Boxee Beta’s DXVA?
HD3200 should benefit from DXVA, but at this point there is some bug specifically with this card. We are working on it.
I will go for Boxee on either Mac Mini or on Apple TV…
These mighty fine ION boxen will give you a better experience than an Apple TV. And cost less.
Mac Mini is awesome for Boxee.
But one small problem with the mac mini is no HDMI port…
Just Google DVI to HDMI cable
only problem is neither of those have a dvd drive. eee box seems alot more appealing http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=JEaDVvtKZ9hHhda2... although a bit more expensive.
Save the world, stop accumulating plastic
I haven’t heard any updates for a while. Is it ever going to be possible to run the Netflix app for Boxee on an AppleTV? I’ve heard from some people that it’s a hardware limitation whereas others say it’s a legal limitation. Any word from you guys? I’d really really love to stream Netflix to my AppleTV.
It’s a hardware limitation – silverlight requires more GHz than the AppleTV’s got to give.
I’m currently using the Boxee Alpha on an Ubuntu powered Acer Aspire Revo, so can’t wait for the Boxee Beta for Ubuntu! Works really well and the Linux version of the Revo was significantly cheaper than the Windows version. I am still surprised at how quiet the Revo is, not silent admittedly, but not much noisier than my PVR, this is down to the hardware accelerated video on the NVidia ION that means the CPU doesn’t have to work hard.
I’ve been looking at the ASROCK 330-BD – two problems:
1. I would like to have a mythbuntu backend and a Boxee frontend. I understand only XBMC can currently do this? Is this planned for Boxee?
2. Can’t use Blue Ray drive under Linux – bummer! Are there any possible solutions to have Boxee on Linux play BD discs?
Any thoughts?
Mythbuntu currently unsupported under Boxee, nor are BD drives at this time. Sorry.
Damn… Lol! Tom, do you have any personal experience (or heard any trustworthy user reports) on whether this system (Asrock 330HT-BD) or similar perform well with XBMC/Boxee under Ubuntu? Better than they do on Windows 7? Now that both XBMC & Boxee are using DirectX for Windows, is it finally the OS for HTPC’s, or do Linux versions still pack a punch in comparison?
Both Windows and Linux work very well now. Under Linux, VDPAU is supported for NVidia cards, and under Windows DirectX and DXVA.
I like Linux as it allows for tweaking and making the experience similar to a CE device, if you know how. Windows has the added advantage of Netflix, so if you are a Netflix user, Windows is the way to go.
Another huge advantage to Windows is that Flash 10.1 is accelerated (currently in beta, and mileage varies) on the ION platforms. If you mostly stream from the web, again, Windows is the winner for running Boxee.
We do have an ASROCK for testing, and it works well.
Good to know it’s good to go! Being outside the US (and having tried the proxy approach and found it lacking) the only web service I can not live without is the iPlayer. If this is working 100% under Ubuntu in the new BETA on the ion platform then I’m sold on one of these little buggers! How has your test rig coped with the iPlayer under Ubuntu?
LOL’d at the pic from the end of this post. You’re getting Boxee for Christmas.
What on Earth were you thinking, having porn at your launch event earlier in the week? 700 people at a professional event should not be subjected to such garbage.
Rule of thumb – Boxee events are not meant to be “professional”. They are about getting in touch with our community, and have fun.
Suicide Girls is not porn. It is art. Beauty of mind, body and soul. And are fun. Will be an honor and pleasure having them at future events as well.
Do hope you have otherwise enjoyed the event.
How can I get the beta Sw to test it in my system ?
Zotac ION.
thanks
Is this correct? Boxee is still not compatible with Windows Vista 64-bit systems?
We hope to support 64-bit systems in the future, but we’re not quite there yet.
I have the Acer Revo, it’s a great little unit for boxee. I have had it hooked up to my 56″ plasma for months now, no issues, all good. I give it a hole hearted recommendation for a boxee box.
I can’t wait to take advantage of it’s ion chip….now if I could only get my beta invite
I am having trouble getting Netflixs to work properly on the Beta. My account is linked and I can view my queue but when I attempt to play the movies, I get audio and a white screen only. (I can hear the audio and pause/play/FF but no video.) Any ideas?
(XP Pro, 4gig ram, 2.4ghz)
The Beta kicks A&$ – Keep it up dev team!
I had the same problem – try installing the latest version of Silverlight and see if that helps.
Ill give that a try. Thanks
Any chance you guys will get HD support for Netflix?
Just snagged a Zotac (the dual core one)
Any chance I can get a beta invite to try on it? I’ll put up a walkthrough on the forums if it helps me get in someones good graces.
I’m especially interested in trying out the new gcc target for ion thats in gcc 4.5 on some of what I plan to run. Has anyone tested that with Boxee itself yet to see if the performance benefits are significant?