Within just a few seconds Boxee found every computer attached to my local network and all my open network shares. Boxee also offers remote control software for iOS and Android devices, if that’s your bag.Īfter connecting Boxee to your network it will attack it quite aggressively, searching for Samba fire shares. The remote is not backlit and even though it’s QWERTY, good luck pecking out anything in the dark. It works well for entering in search phrases and account information, but I wouldn’t want to crank out a book with it. The flipside of the remote contains a qwerty keyboard. Because of its symmetrical design, it’s often difficult to tell which way it’s pointed - and, I’ve found (unfortunately?) the remote works just as well when it’s backwards and pointing the wrong way. The “top” contains a play/pause button, a navigational pad with an “enter” button in the center, and a “back” button. The first thing you’ll notice is that the remote is dual-sided. There are also two USB ports and one SD card slot for additional media storage.īoxee’s remote is both brilliant and odd. For network connectivity, Boxee supports both 100MB ethernet and 801.11n wireless connections. Audio can be routed through HDMI, an optical out port, or a pair of stereo RCA jacks. It’s much smaller than it appears in pictures. If it weren’t for the lopped off corner, Boxee would be a perfect 4″ cube. Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you … Boxee!īoxee is, well, boxy. I ordered mine last week from TigerDirect, and it arrived last night. After reading the specs, this sounded like exactly what I was looking for. However, D-Link has released the Boxee Box quite literally, a box that runs Boxee. Up until last year it only ran on XBoxes and PCs, neither of which met my needs. XBMC is one of the best media center-friendly interfaces around. Boxee (the software) is derived from the old XBox Media Center (XBMC). I also looked at a slew of DVD players and televisions that promised to stream video files wirelessly across the house, but for one reason or another none of them met my needs. I also looked at the Western Digital TV Live Hub (also $99), but for that price it lacks local storage (another $99) and wireless networking (another $50). Apple had the right idea with their Apple TV ($99), but (at the time) it didn’t have a lot of supporting apps, local streaming appeared to be tied to iTunes, and it didn’t natively support DivX/XviD files (99% of my video collection). I began researching “meda streaming devices” late last year and found several that did “almost” what I wanted. And I didn’t want to have to deal with the noise and the heat and the upkeep of a PC in the bedroom - plus, again, the cost of putting together a PC to do what I want would be more than what the payoff is worth to me. I didn’t want to put a PlayStation 3 in there because (a) I would never play games in there, (b) the ability to watch movies in my bedroom isn’t worth $300 to me, and (c) I’m kind of sour on Sony at the moment. Unfortunately, up until yesterday, I had no way to stream media into my bedroom. In the living room, this is performed by Pivo, my PC-Based DVR. Upstairs, this is performed via a PlayStation 3. To stream media from the server, you need a UPnP client. (Everything that matters gets backed up to two locations stuff that barely matters only gets backed up to one.) The media server acts as a UPnP Server, running Twonky. The majority of my movies, music and photographs are now stored digitally and reside on my media server.
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