New Boxee hardware coming IN THE FALL.

[tronbrain]

Well I work for Best Buy and the out stock date (an approximate estimate of it end-of-life in our retail division) is 10-14-2012. Take from that what you will.

If you want to sell product at Christmas, you generally have to be in stores by Halloween. That's the Christmas black-out date.

[spacholka]

Yes, the Boxee remote is buggy, and has the occasional problem which is actually in most cases a problem with the transceiver inside the box. And it needs a back light. And it's still an awesome remote. What's wrong with it being proprietary? Bluetooth tends to be crap for a lot of applications. My two Bluetooth mice keep dropping the connection on me, and so I junked them and went back to Logitech proprietary RF. Wow, so much better.

Boxee is better than a PC because it's an integrated solution. No PC-based solution could equal it in that regard. I know many geeks don't mind a small, fugly PC case with a loud, whirring fan on their theater stand. But the Boxee just fits in so well. It's a fantastic looking product.

I admit the boxee does look nice.
My e35m1 board has passive cooling and is available in mitx format. It also has a integrated gpu thats more than capable of playing everything so you can squeeze everything in the tightest of cases. There are many small mitx cases out there not much bigger than a Wii and without the need of a fan for cooling you can accomplish a silent, energy efficient and stylish box quite easily, again it all comes down to $. Customizations can be endless and you can truly make you own device. No two HTPCs have to be the same. To me thats the best feature of all, absolute freedom.

[ScottAllyn]

Boxee is better than a PC because it's an integrated solution. No PC-based solution could equal it in that regard. I know many geeks don't mind a small, fugly PC case with a loud, whirring fan on their theater stand.

I'm not really a geek but I do have a pc-based XBMC solution and I absolutely hate fugly pc cases with loud fans. My solution is one of the little Foxconn e350 PCs that's just a tad smaller in every dimension than two stacked DVD cases. It does have a fan, but I've yet to hear it get any louder than the Boxee Box's fan. In my normal room lighting, most people don't even know that the computer is there.

Here's a photo of the PC sitting on top of some DVDs:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12472870/Ph...-footprint.jpg

I'm not pushing an XBMC agenda; I agree that, for most people, it's not a viable solution. I just wanted to point out that HTPCs don't have to be bulky, ugly, noisy boxes.

[tronbrain]

I'm not really a geek but I do have a pc-based XBMC solution and I absolutely hate fugly pc cases with loud fans. My solution is one of the little Foxconn e350 PCs that's just a tad smaller in every dimension than two stacked DVD cases. It does have a fan, but I've yet to hear it get any louder than the Boxee Box's fan. In my normal room lighting, most people don't even know that the computer is there.

Here's a photo of the PC sitting on top of some DVDs:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12472870/Ph...-footprint.jpg

I'm not pushing an XBMC agenda; I agree that, for most people, it's not a viable solution. I just wanted to point out that HTPCs don't have to be bulky, ugly, noisy boxes.

That e350's a bit nicer than the ones we had linked to on NewEgg earlier.

I think that people who build things, like their own XBMC box, are like people who modify their cars. It's really cool to see what people can do with the technology. Those people are doing a good thing and are benefiting the entire community, even the Boxee users here. It will force manufacturers to make better and better devices if they have the home-brewers pushing the leading edge. Today's home-brew technology will probably wind up being tomorrow's plug-and-play home appliance. At least I hope so.

The Boxee Box only has 1 GB internal SSD storage. The next device will probably have somewhere around 8 GB, since prices on SSDs have come down so much in the last couple of years. That will be a huge improvement for caching thumbnails, managing the internal databases, etc.

[jebise]

I very happy with the current boxee box and all though it has its major flaws its not the devices fault. I'm just greatly disappointed with the lack of support from the devs. They don't have stable code even after almost 2 years things are broken or very limited (Pictures and Music), they start new projects and don't finish the old. BBox firmware is still buggy yet they introduce airplay as a beta feature, break SMB (still does not hold my password) and then move on to something like cloudee like wtf?? and the firmware is still buggy and now we have a new buggy feature like airplay and soon to be cloudee.

If they just spend the time fixing the bugs rather then adding new beta stuff we would have a functional box by now. They need to relies who helped them when they where nothing, it was just geeks that once had HTPC's and where looking for a set top box solution and are still looking because Boxee did not deliver.

I can look past the HD drop outs and flash IF they actually made an effort to make the box better after 2 long years, but they have yet to and i still say its beta at best.

Its not the device or the lack of support by Intel (for all we know Boxee is just pointing the finger at Intel) its the lack of support by Boxee Inc, they don't listen to what WE want they just do there own thing and say: Does Boxee work? No please fix the bugs. Jira ticket closed or set to triage and is now forgotten. What lame support is that?

Like I said the Box is okay for what it is its just the company I'm starting to hate. If Microsoft didn't listen to its customers we all would still be running crappy Windows Vista man was that ever a crap shoot.

[Cableguy]

I'm not really a geek but I do have a pc-based XBMC solution and I absolutely hate fugly pc cases with loud fans. My solution is one of the little Foxconn e350 PCs that's just a tad smaller in every dimension than two stacked DVD cases. It does have a fan, but I've yet to hear it get any louder than the Boxee Box's fan. In my normal room lighting, most people don't even know that the computer is there.

Here's a photo of the PC sitting on top of some DVDs:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12472870/Ph...-footprint.jpg

I'm not pushing an XBMC agenda; I agree that, for most people, it's not a viable solution. I just wanted to point out that HTPCs don't have to be bulky, ugly, noisy boxes.

For those interested: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16856119069

Interesting stuff. Looks like it still prices out higher than a BB but possibly a nice alternative for those looking for something else.

Thanks, ScottAllyn.

[spacholka]

Are you using an SSD drive in yours Scott? Perfect little system you have there.

[ScottAllyn]

Yes, I have a 60 GB SSD installed. I had the SSD and 4GB of RAM sitting in a drawer, which I used as part of my justification for getting the NanoPC. I don't store any data or media on the drive; just the OS. Initially, I had Win7 on the thing, but after playing with XBMC Live off a flash drive, I decided to install that to the SSD instead; it's fast and lightweight.

I've been going back 'n forth between the official Eden release of XBMC and a pre-Frodo release that someone compiled into a Live version. I may end up switching completely to the pre-Frodo since it has full PVR functionality and can talk to my HDHomeRun (a feature that Boxee dropped like a hot tater!). Getting that PVR stuff setup was a bit nerve-wracking, tho; it required editing a BUNCH of text files. Luckily someone else had gone thru the process and posted detailed instructions online so all I really had to do was cut 'n paste. 'Not something that I'd want to go thru again and not something that I'll likely have to go thru again since all that stuff'll likely be automated in an official release.

[spacholka]

Nice. Cant wait for the official frodo release.
I'm running W7 on mine on a 60gb ssd. Its quick as hell with 8gb of ram compliment it. I'd love to switch to xbmc live but I need Netflix for my little monsters. I do have it installed on a 10gb partition to play around with. Very snappy. I need to get a low profile backet for my hvr-1250 then I plan on setting up the PVR stuff. From your post it sounds like waiting for Frodo will be a little less nerve racking so I may just hold off on that for a bit. Good info. Thanks.

[twistybox]

Has anyone pointed out yet that in the BOM posts no one included the cost of the OS? A Windows 7 license costs more than a Boxee Box itself. And running Linux is not an option because then you won't get any of the premium features available in Boxee.