Filed under: Internet, Video, Windows, Macintosh, Linux
First look at Boxee Alpha media center for Windows
by Brad Linder Jan 16th 2009 at 12:00PM
They also launched a private alpha of a Windows version of Boxee.
Boxee for Windows looks and feels a lot like the Ubuntu version I tried a while back. The software provides a full screen interface for browsing photos, video, and music stored on your PC or for accessing online media from sites like Last.fm, Hulu, YouTube, and Shoutcast. The developers also recently added support for Joost and the BBC iPlayer, but this feature only works for users in the UK due to the BBC's IP limitations (it's worth noting that Hulu and other US-based services may not work for users outside of the US unless you use a proxy server).
One of the best things about the way Boxee handles online video is that every movie opens in full screen mode. You can tell that the developers have designed this application to use a full screen interface that will look as good on your HDTV as your laptop. The font size is a bit small for standard definition television sets, but Boxee menus and dialogs are a bit easier to read than the text areas in Zviewer, which is clearly not designed for standard definition TVs.
When I met up with the Boxee guys at CES they warned me that there may be a few bugs in the Windows version. After all, this is still Alpha software. But I found that the program was fairly stable and responsive.
One of the things that sets the Windows version apart from the OS X version is that many Mac computers come with a standard hardware remote control while this is not the case for Windows machines. This is one of the reasons the Boxee team focused on the Mac software first. But using a standard Windows Media Center remote I found it was pretty easy to navigate through the Boxee screens.
I did have trouble pausing, starting, stopping, and fast forwarding through files during playback. I also found that the volume buttons on my remote were pretty much useless. But these are all issues that I suspect could be worked out by remapping some of the buttons on the remote control.
Overall Boxee presents a slick media center interface which could be a compliment to Windows Media Center on Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 computers. While Windows Media Center provides a pretty decent solution for browsing and accessing media on your hard drive, Boxee's web video browser is far more sophisticated.
While Boxee doesn't work as a personal video recorder, if you have a TV tuner in your computer you can schedule recordings using Windows Media Center and configure Boxee to scan your recorded TV folder so that you can watch recorded, downloaded, or online video all from the Boxee interface without ever having to use Windows Media Center for anything besides setting up recordings.
One of the things that sets the Windows version apart from the OS X version is that many Mac computers come with a standard hardware remote control while this is not the case for Windows machines. This is one of the reasons the Boxee team focused on the Mac software first. But using a standard Windows Media Center remote I found it was pretty easy to navigate through the Boxee screens.
I did have trouble pausing, starting, stopping, and fast forwarding through files during playback. I also found that the volume buttons on my remote were pretty much useless. But these are all issues that I suspect could be worked out by remapping some of the buttons on the remote control.
Overall Boxee presents a slick media center interface which could be a compliment to Windows Media Center on Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 computers. While Windows Media Center provides a pretty decent solution for browsing and accessing media on your hard drive, Boxee's web video browser is far more sophisticated.
While Boxee doesn't work as a personal video recorder, if you have a TV tuner in your computer you can schedule recordings using Windows Media Center and configure Boxee to scan your recorded TV folder so that you can watch recorded, downloaded, or online video all from the Boxee interface without ever having to use Windows Media Center for anything besides setting up recordings.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dan said 12:23PM on 1-16-2009
It'd be great to have an icon to launch Boxee in Media Center itself. Best of both worlds without putting down the remote then.
I tried to hack something together but couldn't quite get it running. The icon appeared, but nothing happened.
Great app though. The iPlayer integration is pure win.
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Jash Sayani said 4:01PM on 1-16-2009
Boxee for Windows !!
Too good to be true.
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tom sella said 4:56PM on 1-16-2009
hi brad, thanks for for the review!
we will resolve full mapping of the mce remote by the next release of Windows alpha.
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Joel said 11:39AM on 1-17-2009
Is it just me but I cannot see the windows version.
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Brad Linder said 11:41AM on 1-17-2009
That's because it's currently in private alpha testing. The Boxee team will expand the test to the general public after it's worked out some more of the kinks in the software.
Bryan said 11:26PM on 1-17-2009
My Question: What's wrong with XBMC? Why not help an excellent product get even better rather than forking (like Plex and so many other before)?
I love XBMC and use it exclusively to play my movies and recorded TV. Only thing missing is DVR (live TV) support and plugins for HULU, etc.
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Sam said 6:21PM on 1-18-2009
@Bryan: Thanks Bryan this is exactly what I had in mind! I am still using XBMC with my old xbox and have no complaints! xbmc is open source and the Boxee team is supposed to release their code back to the community? is this ever going to happen?
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Tom Sella said 8:08AM on 1-21-2009
hi sam,
boxee is working closely with team-xbmc, in fact, two boxee developers are on team-xbmc, we've hosted xbmc devcon last year in amsterdam, shared prize money with team-xbmc for winning istage.
we submit fixes to xbmc, and depending on interest from the team, bring some boxee features to it.
our source code is available to team-xbmc and everyone else at http://app.boxee.tv (you can register for an account at http://www.boxee.tv).
cheers,
tom
Nimb said 8:47PM on 1-21-2009
You know it funny that I stumble on this article. I have been pondering if I should setup a upnp server on my ubuntu box to share with my 360 or install boxee... I guess I am gonna go the box route at this point :)
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Rich said 12:33PM on 2-02-2009
Brad,
You mentioned that you got Boxxee to recognize your MS-DVR files. I also added the RecordedTV folder to my sources and Boxxee didn't scan/index them. I even renamed a few to the Boxxee recognized TV show formats noted in their forums.
Please, please, please share how you got that to work.
Many Thanks,
Rich
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Brad Linder said 12:37PM on 2-02-2009
Hmm. I actually use BeyondTV to record TV shows, so all of my programs are in MPEG or DiVX format. I imagine if Boxee doesn't recognize DVR-MS files, you could use something like DVRMS Toolbox to convert them first. But honestly, you might be better off just watching your recorded videos in Windows Media Center and flipping over to Boxee for web video or other media files.
Rich said 12:48PM on 2-02-2009
Thanks Brad, I thought you might have figured it out. I hate having to jump in/out of Boxxee and was hoping to give more lovin to the awesome interface. FYI, you CAN browse in Boxxee to the new source you can add for RecordedTV and they do play(so far just analog/SD/no DRM afaik), so some kudos to Boxxee for that.
You know the pain of conversion/transcoding and talk about tens/hundreds of daily files some of which you want to have VMCE delete over time, though not needed. You get the point.
This would be a huge plus for Boxxee Win users if nothing else to leverage the power of their sweet interface. I did put in a request for a 'settings' addition to allow user defined file format recognition to properly categorize TV Shows...we'll see :)
bgthedeb said 11:13AM on 3-31-2009
I'm a windows "user" and I have Apple TV. My primary interest in Boxee for Windows is to stream Pandora, LastFM, Hulu, Songza etc... over my tv and stereo ... is this possible? How does it work?
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