1st impressions of new Oct 20th build

[mwunder]

First off...nice advancement.

1st the things I liked:
The menu definitely is snappier
Wrong Video feature works now
Now Playing choice on menu (just makes more sense)
Graphics are nicer
Slide away menu bar allows for larger screen area to be used for good info.
Large icons for Videos and such...assume same on Music.
Added Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central, etc.
I am sure there is more but I only played a bit with it.

Now things that I noticed (Hiccups):
I only played with the Video portion since all my music is on the ATV...

View choice always defaults back to the display with thumbnails, I like the thumbnail with side bar info myself. Funny thing is that when it defaulted back to icon view, the icon for your view choice when you go right is the last one chosen, not the icon view. Does that make sense?

Sometimes after watching a video then stopping, then selecting a different video ended up playing the video before.

Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central...is awesome and easy to choose videos but major stuttering when playing - audio OK. Sometimes it was almost as it was stop motion with really slow framerates. FYI...I have hardwired ethernet connection to my ATV with high bandwidth internet with Comcast. Speedtest.net tops it out at 30mb/s averages around 22 (of course, this is when testing to my nearest city) and I know I don't have problem when streaming movies to my laptop. This might be a hardware limitation on the ATV, but just thought I would let you know that those great addons in the Internet Videos don't work - at least for me. The previous internet videos worked. I know that you are using their video player embedded into Boxee. Just giving feedback...not complaining because...after all...it is alpha!

Will test more and report back anything I find.

Great work! Thank YOU!

[marcel]

thanks mwunder

as per normal great report ..keep that testing going.which addons in the internet videos are not working...glad to hear that the wrong video option is working for you now..

[mwunder]

Hulu - it was weird that some were better than others. SNL Update was the best and only stuttered a bit. Simpsons - stop frame, Men In Black Movie - Stop Frame.

Comedy Central - Grainy and a bit stuttering worse than SNL Update above.

CBS - Stuttering about same as SNL Update

MySpaceTV - Many items just didn't work. I would get a black screen and the timeline showed it was playing but nothing on screen. Sometimes I got a MySpace Icon in red with !. 60Frames worked but stuttered a bit.

Of course, I know you can't do anything about the graininess of the feeds...this has to do with my 52" LCD TV and the quality of the compression. More of the stuttering I am worried about.

Thanks.

[cbeiting]

I too am experiencing quite a bit of choppiness and delay running HULU or CBS.com -- but really guys it's quite an accomplishment you have even displaying it... and I am certain it will get better.

The menus and such look okay... just the Flash based stuff... (which is understandable)

Boxee is quickly become the premiere XBMC build for Mac/AppleTV

Fix these quirks and it's going to be awesome.

[vulkan]

hopefully we'll have a fix for hulu soon...
we suspect the thing is as mwunder suggested - not enough horse power on the atv.
so for atv - we'll use lower bitrate streams. see if that solves it.

thanks for the reports guys!

[larrydavis]

I used the patchstick creator that's hosted on Google Code. What's the best way to update to this latest alpha build so I can try the new features such as Hulu?

Thanks!

[baksharp]

Hi,
-installed the update on ATV using <update> mode. - Successful.
-Return to Menu - Successful.
-Played with the new GUI. I like it. Sidebar on left and right.

Here are my findings.
- went into local videos - still no local videos shown. I had added quite a few in my sources.
- went into hulu.com. Played <my own worst enemy> episode. video started playing, but very stuttery. Audio went faster than video.
-went into CBS videos, <mentalist> episode. Unbelievable,played fantastic. Audio and Video in sync. Perfect!. so i figured it could be hulu videos having some settings issue...dont know yet...
- tried stopping and pressed menu to go back. control went back but video would start playing. Infact it kept playing even when i was outside the context and pressing other options!.
- exit works great. gracefully takes me back into ATV Main Menu after the apple logo.
- the speed has increased dramatically...if not almost instantly when using apple remote on boxee menus.
-went into rss feeds and played the video that was attached. it played perfectly!.audio and video perfect!.

I am impressed!. This is just awsome.

More to come later as i find out more!.

Thank you guys.
baksharp.

[larrydavis]

I did <update> from the AppleTV menu but I didn't get the option to see CBS and Hulu videos anywhere. Am I missing something?

[nace33]

I also tried to update and do not have the hulu option. When I goto update on the atv, I see version 0.9.3383. Is this the version that has hulu?

[gmoyer]

I also installed new update on apple tv but am not seeing the new version (I installed the new version on my mac, and it is completely different than what I'm seeing on my apple tv). I even ran the update again and reset the apple tv and re-launched Boxee, but am still not seeing the new version. Please help.

Thanks,
Gordon

UPDATE: Installed new version of XBMC Launcher and then was able to install new version of Boxee. Love being able to view HULU and Comedy Central from Boxee! No stuttering problems. You made an awesome product even more awesome! THANK YOU!!! Like others, I'm not really all that keen on the new background stage image - I like the old one better.