Boxee Swings for Spot in Set-Top Box Ring [the web on TV]

technewsworld ^ | 12-9-09 | Jack Germain

[smokingfrog]

   Soon there will be a ready-to-use open source option for viewing Web content on your TV: the Boxee Box. In collaboration with D-Link, Boxee will be offering a device that lets users surf the Web for video content without a computer, hard drive or keyboard. Boxee's value is tied to the content it channels into the user's home, remarked Bill Weinberg, principal consultant and independent analyst for Linux Pundit.

The Boxee video-on-demand software maker aims to change the way consumers get free movie and TV entertainment from the Internet with its first hardware venture, called "Boxee Box."

The open source software company debuted its new hardware device at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Monday. The new device, essentially a TV set-top box, will augment the current beta software that's available so far only to invited testers. Boxee officials expect to have the first consumer TV boxes on sale for around US$200 during the second quarter of 2010.

Taiwanese networking equipment manufacturer D-Link will make the units that will allow users to browse Internet videos on their TVs without being connected to a dedicated Mac, Windows or Linux computer. The device will not need a hard drive or a keyboard.

"Before the release of the Boxee/D-Link device, potential users were forced to dedicate a multimedia-capable computer to hosting Take the worry out of managing your enterprise applications. Click to learn how. Boxee," Bill Weinberg, principal consultant and independent analyst for Linux Pundit, told LinuxInsider. "While certainly loading Linux and Boxee onto an unused PC or -- better yet -- a Microsoft Windows Home Media-type device, is not rocket science, it is probably beyond the comfort zone and/or budget of many consumers."

[smokingfrog]

Looks like a cool way to watch Hulu and other web multimedia on your big screen?

[sticker]

Just take a retired computer and hook up to the flat panel.

[Lazamataz]

I read this wrong. I read:

(Barbara) Boxer Swings for Spot in Sex-Tape Fox Ring

.... and I was all like, EWWWWwwww.

[perfect_rovian_storm]

I just bought a motherboard and processor and stuffed it in a retired computer case with other retired components and hooked it up to the flat screen. Cost me about $100.

I have Boxee installed as well as XBMC, Moovida, etc, but not a single one of them do what I want from the system, which is to have an eye candy interface for media AND can still allow me full control over the ENTIRE OS with my wireless keyboard while maintaining a consistent user experience.

Boxee seems to be focused on the ‘social networking’ idea, which is something I’m not at all interested in. But as an eye candy interface to my movie collection, it’s pretty decent. Not anywhere near a perfect solution though.

[Harold Shea]

I watch Boxee and Hulu with a hacked AppleTV on my 42” Vizio

[sticker]

I use an old Dell Laptop(dead screen) on my LG. Have an old Ibook I may try

[SunTzuWu]

They are reinventing the wheel. Microsoft did this over ten years ago. It was called WebTV and it's how many folks including my parents got their first introduction to the Internet.

[nysuperdoodle]

Open Vision TV has a pretty good TV service for CPU use. I use that and atdhe on my computer at home all the time. Eliminates the need to have a TV service in my home office and I can still watch all the football games live.