List of issues from Boxee owner's thread at AVS

[voip-ninja]

It was recommended to me by Eli that I post here with the issues I've been collating at the AVS owner's thread here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1286552) (I've also posted a very basic video review/overview on Youtube that you can see there for those interested).

At the AVS forums people primarily have DVD and BD material that they have ripped themselves from content of their own. No handbrake re-encode to H.264, no re-encode with EAC3TO of our HD audio tracks to Dolby Digital.

You get the idea. I'm just pointing this out ahead of time as you will see that from the AVS perspective the problems we are complaining about are more centered around Blu-ray home theater playback;

1. BD ISO broken. BD ISO seems to have major playback problems where it will buffer repeatedly, this is even on a wired ethernet connection. Boxee appears to be aware of this.

2. Dolby True-HD tracks in MKV containers for some movies cause the movie to stutter, pixelate and eventually crash the Boxee Box (have to hard reset it). Titles doing this include Casino Royale (2006) and others.

3. DTS-MA in an MKV file suffers from intermittent dropout of audio, maybe for a second or a half a second once every x number of minutes. The problem is not reproducible in the same spot in the file so seems to be some decoding/buffering weirdness.

4. True-HD tracks are being converted to PCM instead of bitstreamed. Not that big of a deal but they have acknowledged a driver/firmware bug with Intel on this one.

5. Black crush. Some users are lamenting that they cannot change the black range of the box from 0-255 to 16-255 and vice versa. Some AVR/Projector/TV sets have issues if it is set the wrong way and there appears to be no way to adjust it.

6. PGS subtitles are always turned on by default. Need global toggle switch for this, which Eli says is coming in next FW update. Also, need fix for PGS forced subtitles displaying automatically even if global subs disabled or subs turned "off" on a given title. The idea of forced is that it always plays it no matter what.

7. DVD ISO menu problems. Users have reported that with some titles the DVD menus are wonky.

8. General hatred of the UI and/or lack of ability to access our local content. We were told to buy the Boxee Box based on what we saw when using the PC beta, but obviously they have re-written the entire GUI in order to make someone (studio executives?) happy.

9. Remote control issues... mostly with shape of the remote and lack of any glow-in-the-dark or backlight functions. Doesn't seem to work correctly with USB-IR converters (some menu keys not working correctly, etc).

10. Needs auto shutdown/sleep mode after an inactivity timer is reached vs. just doing the screen saver thing. When screen saver is displaying the green boxee lamp on the device should dim down to low brightness or even turn off for those of us who sleep near this stuff in a bedroom.

That's about all for now, we also observed that one RF remote controls all the boxees in a house but from looking at some threads here it does appear there is some way to pair remotes to individual boxes. So I will have to check into that.

[aaronwt]

why the name change?

[dbone1026]

why the name change?

You didn't know he was a ninja??? He goes by that name in other circles

[newboxeeuser]

Good list! These things should be stickied somewhere so devs have easy access to central lists of confirmed broken/missing issues/items.

[ghaynes]

Other things to add:

1. Provide caching of local cover art to SD card and/or network instead of going out and pulling it down everytime there is a shutdown.

2. Provide genre/alpha filtering on local files

[newboxeeuser]

Other things to add:

1. Provide caching of local cover art to SD card and/or network instead of going out and pulling it down everytime there is a shutdown.

2. Provide genre/alpha filtering on local files

#2 is a broke/missing feature, I added to the link in my sig, master thread for all .9 to 1.0 broken/missing features.

[canuckle]

There appears to be a Boxee Box bug in the way the WIFI network sections shows signal strength.

My WIFI shows one bar whereas my neighbors shows full strength, when I look on my notebook at the same locale of the Boxee Box, Mine shows 4 out 5 bars and the neighbors with 1.

It's like it's showing the signal strength reversed.

[Ph8]

There appears to be a Boxee Box bug in the way the WIFI network sections shows signal strength.

My WIFI shows one bar whereas my neighbors shows full strength, when I look on my notebook at the same locale of the Boxee Box, Mine shows 4 out 5 bars and the neighbors with 1.

It's like it's showing the signal strength reversed.

THey know this and are working on fixing this bug. It was posted in a different thread.

[phillai]

New boxee box owner here (I used to own an ASUS O!Play Air).

Some things I've discovered.

1) Can't delete files or edit file names on videos on my external hard drive.

2) Can't easily change language subtitles or language voices on videos being played.

3) Chinese text is not supported for video titles that are named in Chinese.

Anyone else notice this or any other new issues?

[darcilicious]

from looking at some threads here it does appear there is some way to pair remotes to individual boxes. So I will have to check into that. Yes, each remote just needs to be properly paired by having only one Box on at a time and then holding down the OK/Select button for about 5-6 seconds. Repeat for each box in the house, making sure only one is on at a time.

[darcilicious]

1) Can't delete files or edit file names on videos on my external hard drive.

Yes, this is a known issue -- as soon as your power cycle the Box, the permissions on the external drives get reset.


2) Can't easily change language subtitles or language voices on videos being played.I'm not sure what you mean by easily. I've done using the settings button during video playback then selecting audio, and then selecting the language/subtitle. But that's been pretty much with DVD rips using makemkv..


Anyone else notice this or any other new issues?

You may want to take a look at http://jira.boxee.tv to get an idea of known/reported issues :) It can be rather fun ;)

[darcilicious]

These things should be stickied somewhere so devs have easy access to central lists of confirmed broken/missing issues/items.

The list for the developers is maintained here: http://jira.boxee.tv and since Eli (a Boxee developer) made the original suggestion, I'm 99.9% sure that the devs know about these issues :)

This list is for the users :)

[phillai]

I'm not sure what you mean by easily. I've done using the settings button during video playback then selecting audio, and then selecting the language/subtitle. But that's been pretty much with DVD rips using makemkv..

Oh, I will look into this again then. Thanks!

Would you by any chance know if chinese text support is likely to be supported in the near future?

[idanhakak]

There is also a problem with the gamma with the box, the pictured is greyish, missing contrast and blacklevels.

[voip-ninja]

There is also a problem with the gamma with the box, the pictured is greyish, missing contrast and blacklevels.

Not sure what you mean. There is a known limitation in the way that the box is handling WTW and BTB material, but I am not aware of there being some kind of gamma bug in the box.

[Chuck_IV]

There is also a problem with the gamma with the box, the pictured is greyish, missing contrast and blacklevels.

Go into Options|General and change the Black level from 16-235 to 0-255. This may fix your issue. The Boxee defaults to the 16-235 setting. If your TV is expecting 0-255 and it gets 16-235, the blacks will be grey and things will look washed out.

[voip-ninja]

Go into Options|General and change the Black level from 16-235 to 0-255. This may fix your issue. The Boxee defaults to the 16-235 setting. If your TV is expecting 0-255 and it gets 16-235, the blacks will be grey and things will look washed out.

A TV would not be expecting 0-255 for any content, but if he is using a PC input on a TV or is using a computer monitor then 0-255 would be preferred.

[voip-ninja]

Then why is it that when I leave it set to 16-235 all my blacks look grey and things are washed out on my LG LCD TV? When I set it to 0-255, black is black and everything looks fine.

I don't know why you are having that problem. What I can tell you is that all NTSC content, whether DVD, Blu-ray, over the air broadcast, etc, is mastered in 16-255.

The problem could be related to this bug which is affecting color mapping in the CE4100 chipset solution;

http://jira.boxee.tv/browse/BOXEE-8252

What I can tell you though, unequivocally is that no content you would normally watch on your TV is mastered for 0-255. So unless your TV has an explicitly 0-255 switch and you have decided to use it for some reason, you should be using 16-255.

Just because the image "looks blacker" does not mean it is correct.

[Gregorin]

I'm missing some additional information from local files.
1. Music
format of the file (mp3/Flac...)
encoding of the file (128kbps, 320kbps, AC3....)

2. Video
format of the file (AVI/MKV...)
Video resolution (480p/720p/1080p....)
Audio format (AC3/2ch/DTS...)
Subtitles (languages....)

3. Pictures
EXIF information and GPS positioning

[ScottAllyn]

Just because the image "looks blacker" does not mean it is correct.

...and assuming that everything else is setup and working properly, it's likely just be a simple tweak to the TV's brightness control to get the [16-235] blacks to look just as dark. ANY change to the luminance levels on the source device (the Boxee Box, in this case) will require (re)adjustments to the TV's/monitor's brightness and contrast controls.

[darcilicious]

I'm missing some additional information from local files.
1. Music
format of the file (mp3/Flac...)
encoding of the file (128kbps, 320kbps, AC3....)

2. Video
format of the file (AVI/MKV...)
Video resolution (480p/720p/1080p....)
Audio format (AC3/2ch/DTS...)
Subtitles (languages....)

3. Pictures
EXIF information and GPS positioning

Boxee has never displayed this level of detail on local files. I think Boxee's approach is just to play whatever media you throw at it and not worry about the details ;)

[idanhakak]

I got a dvb-c box, it coast around of 50 bucks, its a noname. it can take usb files, it handles the contrast and blacklevel, better then the boxee box. when i put it on 0-255, the contrast gets way better and dont get washed out, but sadly all details in the darks are really ruin.

[Gregorin]

Boxee has never displayed this level of detail on local files. I think Boxee's approach is just to play whatever media you throw at it and not worry about the details ;)

This is the problem I have with it. How do I know what kind of media I have before I check it out myself. I believe that the file information is not too difficult to enhance with more details.

[darcilicious]

Well, you've also posted this in the Feature Requests section of the forum so maybe someday it will get implemented.

[jmilum]

This is the problem I have with it. How do I know what kind of media I have before I check it out myself.
I'm trying to understand why this is necessary? You have a list of movies, You pick "Goldfinger" to watch, but you need to know the video and audio format before you watch it?

I could see why you might need to know these details when you originally save the content to your NAS or wherever you store the content (so you pick media with the quality you desire) but once stored, why do you then need to know again before watching?

[idanhakak]

when will next firmware be ready on the boxee box.

[voip-ninja]

Boxee is keeping tight lipped on that (understandably) I believe their last comment was they were hoping for an April release.

[darcilicious]

Boxee is keeping tight lipped on that (understandably) I believe their last comment was they were hoping for an April release.

Boxee has never announced actual release dates in advance. They did do "end of year" for example but that was more about the firmware that was needed for Vudu and then later for Netflix. The SPs unrelated to those "features" weren't announced in advance. It's very unlikely the next one will be announced either.

[idanhakak]

ok but do you know if they will support YCbCr, found out that the problem to the washed out picture is because the box only support rgb which is not good for video material.

[voip-ninja]

There is a bug report indicating that YCBR will be supported in the next release.

[Gregorin]

I'm trying to understand why this is necessary? You have a list of movies, You pick "Goldfinger" to watch, but you need to know the video and audio format before you watch it?

I could see why you might need to know these details when you originally save the content to your NAS or wherever you store the content (so you pick media with the quality you desire) but once stored, why do you then need to know again before watching?

Hi,

First of all it is not possible to delete files via the Boxee up to know. With this information it would be easier to find out which one you should choose.

I can give you a different example why this should be good to have.
I have music in two different qualities on the Storage (mp3 and FLAC)
Unfortunatelly it is not possible to see which one I just play. For the normal TV a mp3 but if I go via my Stereo system i would like to set FLAC.

Cheers,
Greg