Boxee Beta Goes Public, Download Now
The Boxee Beta is officially out. You can grab it here.
The Beta is available for Mac, Windows and Ubuntu (including 64bit.. 
). The version is still not available for Apple TV, yet, but we are working with the atv-creator community, and look forward to having news on this front.
In the past 4 weeks since we announced the upcoming Beta we had the help of tens of thousands of early access users who tested the Beta on all different platforms and gave us great feedback. Hundreds of bugs have been opened and we’ve been working diligently to resolve as many of them as we could. We feel the version deserves the upgrade from Alpha grade to Beta grade, and we’re going to spend the next year improving it, so we can release 1.0 at CES next year
For more details on what’s new in the Beta you check out the blog post from Dec 7th.
As always with a new release we are also launching with new content partners.
“TV Shows” gets content from
We’re excited to announce that we’ve signed an agreement with TV.com to bring their show and community information into the Boxee Beta’s TV Show menu. TV.com has been a pioneer in building the world’s largest online television guide, with the most comprehensive catalog of content covering over a million episodes across 21,000 televisions shows. Their show listings, information and community greatly enhances the television viewing experience for its millions of monthly users. We’ll be working over the coming months to give Boxee users access to great TV.com content on popular shows like Family Guy, Heroes, NCIS, South Park, House, and How I Met Your Mother. Stay Tuned!”
blip.tv has been available on Boxee through RSS for a while, but now there is a Boxee App that makes it easy to browse by Genre or find a show by name. Blip is fast becoming the platform of choice for independent content producers. It offers content owners a quick and easy way to publish their content and as important real opportunities to monetize it.
Mike, Dina, Justin and the rest of the team are executing flawlessly. We love working with them and are proud to be part of the growing NYC start-up scene that Blip and its all-star team is helping to nurture.
The IGN brand is synonymous with Gaming online. They’ve been around since 1996 producing great content and creating a vibrant community around it (IGN has been my primary source for Game Reviews since forever, so I am really excited that we have it on Boxee now). Their focus has expanded since then and today they are “obsessed with Gaming, Entertainment, and everything guys enjoy”
The IGN App on Boxee gives you access to their top videos, game reviews and their original series.
We’ve just released a new application for the upcoming movie, The Wolfman, which looks awesome. Check out the new app in the Featured section of Boxee to get a taste of how content producers can very easily create something more compelling for the TV than a traditional 30-second advertisement.
—
If you need help with installing or using Boxee check out our support section.
If you have ideas for new features you’d like to see in future versions of Boxee please post them on our Get Satisfaction page.
If you would like to report bugs please post them on http://jira.boxee.tv
subscribe to blog
join boxee
boxee on twitter
Do you have an ETA for the ATV Beta Release?
no ETA, yet. hope to have some news soon.
Is the ATV release already built and just waiting for Patchstick? I have no problem installing via SSH
Yep, would also like to know about ATV
there may be a way for existing Apple TV users to manually upgrade using SSH, but we don’t have the process down, yet
Hi Avner,
I have manually installed all the pre-release beta’s on my ATV – none of them have worked so far. They all crash immediately after going into the main screen. Does the version released today actually work? If it does, I’ll gladly manually install it and test it out….
same here… just uploaded the latest public beta to my ATV… will test it in a couple of minutes!
ok, forget about just SFTP’ing the boxee.app to the ATV. still crashes with error 11 like all the betas before.
Thanks for saving me 10 mins of faffing around Markus! I’ve done that with all the previous betas as well. I wonder what the atv-creator community are going to do to this build to make it work. Or is it a case of re-building it from source with ATV specific support? If so, does this mean that ATV version will no longer be official produced and we will need to wait for the community to produce builds for us in future? I think they’ve all got their hands full with the CrystalHD stuff on the XBMC side at the moment…
I guess it is not a separate build… b’cause Boxee already runs on Tiger 10.4.x
Probably some config stuff that needs some addressing. Inside of the Boxee.app (latest build) I found several files with config and stuff… some of them having *appletv*.* in the filename. So I guess we are pretty close…
Yes… AppleTV info please. I find it strange that you wouldn’t even mention the ATV platform in this post.
It was mentioned but it looks like it has been removed.
it is mentioned briefly. there were a couple of versions of the post. made sure the text is there.
unfortunately we don’t have an ETA for the Apple TV patchstick software and launcher. it is not developed by Boxee.
I wasn’t referring to the patchstick. I haven’t needed my patchstick in quite some time. We won’t be able to update through the current Boxee as we have in the past?
I can’t wait to try the new Boxee, it looks awesome!
Apple TV is what it’s all about. If I wanted to watch shows on my Mac, I don’t need Boxee for that. GO APPLE TV!
A bit sad that Apple TV has been left by the wayside. A lot of early testers and early promoters of Boxee used the Apple TV as a platform so it’s a little sad that the platform has been shunned a little in favour of other platforms. If the issue was speed and capacity, well just say it (the Apple TV is acknowledged, even by those who love it, to be underpowered in many ways).
But sadly, and as is often the case, the early adopters aren’t thanked for their effort.
I still think Boxee is a great product and hope it does exceedingly well. I’ll continue to use my Boxee(alpha) on my Apple TV until the Box is released or something for ATV this way comes.
+1 for ATV…
… We’ve all been waiting patiently, how about a bit of info? Are you still planning on an ATV release. Is it just problematic and a bit delayed, or relegated so far down the ladder it’s disappeared off the bottom!
we are working with the atv-creator community to make it available. it’s not entirely in our hands..
can you just give us a short howto if it is possible to install without patchstick? i am sure there are tons of ppl who can handle it without the patchstick.
last week @boxee_help gave me an ETA for the ATV beta of approx 10 days. so lets keep our fingers crossed!
why even bother with Avner and this crazy Boxee experiment. Wait for Apple to announce the next gen ATV that will include content from all the tv and film studios, Hulu, web, etc. Once that happens, Boxee will be a mere hiccup on the road to realizing the 10 foot experience. Go APPL!
dear real steve jobs,
i am also cheering for a new version of Apple TV. hopefully with an app store and a way to run Boxee natively
regards,
avner
Let’s see… I have a box now that cost about $200 that does EVERYTHING I want including Hulu, CBS, etc…. or wait for Apple to come out with a box for $300 that might do that?
Pass… I’m with you Avner!
I suspect the only reason there are so, so very many pleas for Apple TV news is that users on other operating systems are enjoying this new Boxee version.
I know I enjoyed the pre-release betas very much.
Boxee rocks.
thanks! we need to address the Apple TV users. no question.
I was running the beta released on the 7th, is this the same build or is it newer?
this is a newer build
Public at last! Thanks guys. I digg the new interface.
we spent lots of time thinking about the UI. you should expect more UI changes down the road in 2010
When the ATV creatir stuff gets going, will the Queue sync between different machines – e.g. if I add a video to my queue using the new bookmarklet (v. cool BTW) on my Mac, will these appear on my ATV queue?
yes, the Queue is stored on the server, so any machine you use Boxee on will show the same Queue
When can I buy the remote?
it should be made available at the same time the Box is out
Does 32bit mean it’s just a 32bit application and will run fine on windows 7 64bit or does it really need a 32bit windows?
it will run on 64bit, but there may be some issues. we have not tested it too much.
Can’t wait to run home and try it out. Thanks!
Will there be an update to the iPhone App? I was having problems with the App not controlling the Beta version of Boxee on Windows.
can you put more details about the issue you’re having in http://jira.boxee.tv?
downloading right now =)
waiting for this beta so much time…
the boxxe box will be sold worldwide?
the box will first sell in the US, but D-Link has worldwide distribution, so it should gradually be made available internationally
Am I the only one that can’t find the 64 bit ubuntu deb?
Nope you’re definately not the only one. I’m seeing Ubuntu 32-bit only as download options, despite the 64-bit version being announced at the beginning of the post…
Log in to see the 64bit .deb download
PLEASE UPDATE THE FRONT PAGE !
Super disappointed it’s not available for aTV. Ruined my day
sorry
. will try to bring it back ASAP
I’m kinda mad that you’ve waited until now to say that the ATV won’t be released with everything else. I’ve been waiting since the announcement, trying to get in on the pre-release, anything, and I’ve waited patiently allt he way till now to be told that ATV isn’t being developed with the same priority as the rest.
This is pretty much a slap in the face to ATV users.
Is Netflix going to be included in the TV Show Library? For some reason I thought this was shown in the Beta preview.
yes, it will be part of the library
Plex, everyone.
Disappointed so far. Super slow on Ubuntu 9.04. Upgrading to 9.10 on my P4 with 1GB of ram.
can you send your detailed setup to marcel@boxee.tv?
OK what about boxee support on ATV with the Broadcom Crystal HD upgrade for 1080p playback. See here http://xbmc.org/davilla/2009/12/29/broadcom-crystal-hd-its-magic/
I wish I could agree, but I’m attempting to leave my Tivo and live with a dedicated Boxee setup. It’s been a terrible experience. I’ve purchased an Acer Aspire R3600 Revo computer. I installed Windows 7 and the latest video drivers. I’m running the new beta version of Boxee.
I have a 12mbps download internet connection and the streaming is terrible. The Boxee forums mention that this Beta version doesn’t yet support the newest flash hardware acceleration and it shows. Most things are unwatchable for all the stuttering.
Most of my content is downloaded files, but the interface doesn’t sort them by recently added date (even though that’s an option). Finding new shows that were just added is just impossible. Shows that are downloaded will be on the system for over a day and still not be identified by Boxee. It looks like it found it, but when you click view, it offers an online version instead of local file.
The beta locks up pretty regularly. After it’s done that, I have to restart the computer to get things working again.
Certain .AVI files play the audio normally, while the video moves at about 5 times the speed. Outside of Boxee in media player, they’re fine.
I fully planned to do away with my cable tv / Tivo setup because of all the mentions of this great new Boxee and/or XBMC revolution.
I guess this is still just for geeks like me. My husband is ready to kill me because the usability is to terrible. He sits down and spends 20 minutes just trying to find out what new shows are available and then calls me into the room to figure it out. I usually end up exiting boxee and having to browse to the files and use media player.
This shit has got to get better!!! No wonder Tivo is such a great and successful product. They’ve got this stuff figured out.
I think Boxee needs a TON of work to make it a usable for the average everyday person. Right now, it’s just awful!!!
I’m tired of all the work it takes to just sit down and catch up on my shows. If I have to get the wireless keyboard & mouse out – something is wrong!
we only support Flash Acceleration on specific platforms, sorry. the list of platforms will expand.
on the Settings/Media you can designate the frequency of scanning (the default is once a day). you can also go to the Files section and tell Boxee to scan a specific folder right now.
on the left bar you can choose to sort your media by recently added.
would be great if you could work with us to identify the stability issues your experiencing. can you send an email to marcel@boxee.tv with some more details?
I have to agree. I run Boxee on a macbook pro and internet sources are basically unwatchable. I mainly use Netflix or Hulu. I finally resorted to killing boxee, walking over to my macbook and manually pulling up Netflix in Firefox which runs waaaaay better. Kinda strange that Boxee wrapping netflix or hulu results in such crappy performance. I made sure to update to latest versions of flash and silverlight as well.
The alpha was the same. I was hoping the beta would fix. Boxee still rocks, can’t wait till the kinks are worked out!
The Wolfman app looks awesome. But what you have listed as “Trailer” is really “Trailer 2″ and what you have for “Teaser” is really “Trailer 1.” A teaser trailer was never made for that movie.
Goodness! I love it. Thanks so much!
I just grabed the beta today and couldn’t await seeing it in action (Win7 x64). But the first thing I encountered was a crash. I clicked to play the inserted DVD (Lilo&Stitch), it played the movie just fine, but when I stopped the DVD boxee just hung up (twice). Also playing some MP3 was not that much of a fun like it’s currently with XBMC. The visualization (I chose milkdrop) didn’t work properly at first – I had to go back to the home screen and return to the viz to see it properly in action. Hope that’s helping a bit in improving boxee even more.
What I really like is the improved ease of use, although it’s not consistent all over boxee yet (volume control, displaying movie/audio details/progressbar). I’ll play some more with boxee tonight.
Any plans on doing a non intel osx release? I have an old mac mini I use hooked up to my tv… the download page says intel only. Thanks!
no plan for Power PC support. we just don’t have the bandwidth to deal with it.
As an employee of IGN, super excited that we’re on boxee! Can’t wait to get a Boxee box!
Why does boxee now require a pkg installer on mac? What on earth does it need root for?
It’s just a media player, it should obey the standard mac install process of dragging apps to the Applications folder.
in some cases we need access to system resources, such as Remote Control
TV.com sucks… they offer NO Closed Captioning AT ALL but only on TV. CBS has two websites that offer full episode for viewing that is at CBS.com and TV.com I end up going to HULU.com all the time because most of TV shows from NBC, Fox, ABC are captioned there. no CBS video on HULU. CBS won’t listen to request from TV.com members that wanted CC.
Upgraded to beta version (win7 x32). Super impressed with the new UI. However seeing crashes when Internet TV programmes end. Used to work perfectly fine with alpha version.
[...] shiny new Boxee Beta is out for every platform except Apple TV. Some intrepid hackers have, however, created an [...]
[...] shiny new Boxee Beta is out for every platform except Apple TV, the platform we first used to cut out a cable bill. Some [...]
[...] shiny new Boxee Beta is out for every platform except Apple TV, the platform we first used to cut out a cable bill. Some [...]