Boxee Box Pre-Orders Start At $229 266
Engadget is reporting that Boxee is taking pre-orders at $229 for their set-top box that is utterly guaranteed to not fit into any stereo component rack you might have. They also have switched chipsets from the Tegra 2 to the CE4100. I'm not sure about this thing, but I'd sure like to play with one as I lust for the day when every piece of media I have can be played from a single device. I suspect it'll never happen.
It's not a settop box and it's not a setbottom box (Score:5, Insightful)
Why oh why would they make it so fiendishly hard to place one of these things? Is it really aesthetically pleasing to have to dedicate the whole cabinet under your TV (if you even have one) to this awkward device?
I for one want to see more devices that stay 100% out-of-the-fucking-way. Let me hide it in a low profile cabinet. Let me mount it BEHIND my TV if I want. I bought the TV to look at the TV... I bought your device, TO KEEP LOOKING AT THE TV. Sigh.
The Anti-Slashvertisement? (Score:2, Insightful)
their set top box that is utterly guaranteed to not fit into any stereo component rack you might have
Did someone from Boxee get in a fight with slashdot's corporate overlords?
Re:It's not a settop box and it's not a setbottom (Score:2, Insightful)
Why oh why would they make it so fiendishly hard to place one of these things?
how about ventilation issues with idiot consumers not heeding warnings about stacking devices, and then filing warranty claims when they break?
Re:The Anti-Slashvertisement? (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you look at the picture?
Re:The Anti-Slashvertisement? (Score:1, Insightful)
it's not for sale on thinkgeek...
Plenty of Sony crap that never gets sold on thinkgeek gets seemingly infinite amounts of praise on the slashdot front page (even when it is not unique).
slashdot = stagnated.
Is that news for you some how? Slashdot has been running on autopilot for some time now... When was the last time someone who worked for slashdot actually participated in a discussion here on slashdot that pertained to slashdot?
Re:You already can (Score:3, Insightful)
this.
I was an early adopter for the older popcorn hour boxes. they were what you needed about 2 or 3 yrs ago. but now, things are truly fanless (mini-itx asus ION gfx chipset ftw) and can play anything. the popcorn box has a hardware solution but its software, well, still sucks after 3 yrs and they refuse to truly fix annoying bugs in their software (or, they simply cannot; they are not very good programmers and refuse to open their platform and get proper help).
set top boxes are 'get me by' boxes until pc's are all fanless and living-room silent. itx boxes are (or can be) but its still not as common as silent STB's.
still, stb's are on their way out for serious htpc guys. now that pc's can be silent AND also have video accel that keeps a+v in sync (sigh, finally) and does not drop frames, there is less of a reason for hardware closed-source stb's.
there will continue to be a split in userbase. like today, those that want turnkey solutions will buy cable boxes or rent them, etc. the rest of us will roll our own and use a silent pc for that.
Re:Troll! (Score:0, Insightful)
I like Boxee, and here's why. I'm not post pubescent (over 25), I have a girlfriend, and I don't fantasize about her. I like her because she is the antidote, the antithesis, the hemlock in the cup to Internet Tough Guyism.
I was surprised to see that, for all its posturing, slashdot really does hold one thing sacred: its "bad muthafucka" image of itself. slashdot really believes that it's frightening, that it's tougher than a Ford Chevy, that it's badass masculinity personified, in a sense. And, before, there were very few ways to disrupt this image, to give it a good hard kick in the shins.
And then Boxee came along. Boxee love is everything slashdot hates - passive, gentle, adorable, sweet. It gives without asking, it loves without asking in return. Instead of being aggressively faux-adult, it's happily faux-childlike. That's why Boxee became a meme - because she DIDN'T want the attention; because she provided no pics (as the slashtards will attest). As a result, Boxee turned into the most successful way to troll the slashtards ever devised. It actually makes the gore and violence and sexism and racism fantards squeal, because it hits them where it hurts - in their image of themselves. How can they be tough, scary guys when their favorite hangout is one long love poem to Boxee love? So that's why I love Boxee - the sound of slashdot's humiliation is sweet music to my ears.
Here's a novel idea (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a box right? You don't want it sitting slanted to one side?? Turn it on its side. NOW it'll fit into your AV Cabinet.
Re:The Anti-Slashvertisement? (Score:5, Insightful)
Taco has this thing about emerging media player technology where he establishes a nearly impossible set of requirements and then denegrates each new hardware release because it does not meet each and every one of them.
For whatever reason it appears he builds a media catalog consisting of as many disparate file formats, sizes, bitrates, pixel depths, containers, and codecs as he possibly can then salts them out across spinning hard drives, thumb drives, burned CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, 3.5" floppies, SSDs, and Firewire interface Zip drives, all attached to a network, some segments of which are token ring, via a smattering of obscure operating systems. He complains when no one builds a device that caters to his specific blend of geekery. This thing won't upsample a full duplex ogg vorbis DVD rip in NTSC to 1080p and simultaneously serve it to my laptop and video ipod running rockbox? Think I'll wait to buy.
You'd think he would have learned his lesson with audio, but he did not.
Re:Every piece of media played from a single devic (Score:4, Insightful)
Second, a mouse is infinitely better in your living room than a remote.
I think many people would disagree with "better". A mouse is better at a computer interface than a remote but most people don't want a computer interface when dealing with a media center. If you're watching a show and you decide to fast forward, how do you do that with a mouse? Program alternate buttons? Also with a mouse you need some sort of surface. Some people don't have coffee tables or end tables and that's how they like it. Most consumers use remotes because it's rather simplified. A mouse while workable isn't what they want.
Re:'All in one media player' exists already... (Score:3, Insightful)
You are correct about the windows version, however currently only the new beta (and previous nightly builds) support GPU acceleration. The beta seems pretty solid and has yet to give me any problems. I'm presently running it with win7 on an acer revo 3610, and it's working very well.
Re:My god. (Score:3, Insightful)
No kidding. I have a lot of AV components - 5x240W AV receiver, DVD recorder, Cable DVR, VCR, VCR (both VCRs unplugged as they rarely see use now), cassette deck (unplugged for the same reason) and a blu-ray player. The blu-ray player is annoying as it isn't the standard 18" wide rectangular design - it's designed to either be wall-mounted or to sit at a slant on a stand, out in view (see http://www.gadgetreview.com/2009/04/samsung-bd-p6400-ultra-slim-blu-ray-player-now-available-at-best-buy.html [gadgetreview.com] and http://www.disc-players.com/players/manufacturers/pos/samsung_bd-p4600/?photo=2 [disc-players.com] ). I tolerated it because I happened to find an offer for it for only $30 additional to bundle it with the LN46B650, so I went for it. It's not so bad because it can sit in front of the screen and not interfere with the view, and it's fairly attractive, but I'd rather put it on a shelf underneath with the rest of the components.
The boxee though? At least the Samsgung BD-P6400 is attractive enough to be in plain view, but not so tall that it obstructs the view. The Boxee is something I would never buy because not only does it have to be in plain site, not fit into a standard AV or "stereo" rack, but has been designed to be as ugly as anyone could possibly imagine.
I think ciderbrew is right the designer probably came up with three designs. I will describe what I imagine here:
1. First design: Attractive, gloss black with capacitive touch panel on the front with an OLED or LED-LCD display for full optical disc control. with ports intelligently placed, and a slim IR receiver on a cable for placement on top of the panel, USB (or ESATA) port each on its own bus (not hung off a USB hub) for an external Blu-Ray drive, with an optional slim Blu-Ray drive being offered either as an accessory, or as part of a bundle. Verdict: too expensive.
2. Classic cheap, conservative design: Minimalist flourescent or LED display for the basic stuff (off/on, port status, etc.) with ports on the front and rear, with the front ports being behind a flip-down door. No support for external Blu-Ray, but is reasonably attractive, if ordinary, and designed to be out-of-sight/out of mine because it will Just Work(tm). Verdict: too ordinary.
3. That hideous odd-shaped green and black piece of shit that actually went to market, but absolutely no one will want cluttering up their TV stand, or to take up 4U to 5U of space in their AV rack (allow for clearance to actually insert media cards, etc. with no support for external blu-ray drive. Lower performance than the competition, and far more likely to be reviled and hated by anyone with a sense of either style or practicality. The verdict: "it's cheap, and people will remember it. It's all in the branding!"