Media center application Boxee has grabbed a lot of headlines over the past year or two, and for good reason: Boxee provides Mac, Linux, and Windows users with an excellent solution for watching internet video on a TV. While web browsers were generally designed for viewing text and images with video thrown in as an afterthought, Boxee was designed to look and feel more like a consumer electronics application that you can navigate from the couch with a remote control.

Boxee can access online video from services including Hulu, Joost, and BBC's iPlayer. You can use it to enjoy audio and video podcasts. And you can access local media stored on your hard drive.

But despite all of its features, Boxee is still alpha software. That's going to change next month. Boxee is set to launch the first beta version of its software at an event in New York on December 7th. I suppose the day will continue to live in Infamy, although I doubt that decades from now we'll still be talking about it as the date that Boxee went beta.

The new version will have a new user interface, improved navigation, a user-controlled queue, and a new TV and movie search function among other changes.

After months of private Alpha testing, the Boxee team has finally released a public alpha of the Boxee media center application for Windows. That means you can now run Boxee on Mac, Windows or Ubuntu Linux. The public alpha for Windows does seem to be a bit more stable and responsive than the earlier private alpha version.

Boxee provides you with a full screen browser designed for managing and accessing internet media as well as audio and video stored on your hard drive. Over the past few weeks, Boxee has gained a ton of features through a new "App Store" which allows third party developers to create plugins for the media center.

In addition to launching a public Windows Alpha, Boxee also announced last night a new partnership with MLB.com to offer live and recorded Major League Baseball games through Boxee. Boxee has also added support for Digg, Current.tv and Tumblr.

As Boxee announced the (long overdue) release of it's Windows version, geeks everywhere itching to cut the Cable TV cord -- presumably leaving the one connected to the cable modem alone -- sighed lovingly, and once again began to wax poetic on whether or not Hulu would come back to Boxee.

Even Avner Ronen, CEO of Boxee sounded hopeful in his quick interview with NewTeeVee.

I on the other hand, think all of you are nuts. Hulu is not (officially) available on your TV and it never will be.

Boxee has been getting a lot of attention for its media center application that lets you manage and watch web video and movies stored on your desktop. But right now, the program is only publicly available for Mac and Ubuntu. There's been a Windows version in private alpha testing for a few months, but the key word there is private. No invite code, no access.

But that'll change soon. Boxee founder Avner Ronen says Boxee Alpha for Windows is going public on June 23rd.

No word on whether Boxee will include Hulu support that day or not. The company has been fighting an ongoing battle with Hulu over the issue of streaming Hulu video using Boxee's media browser. But Ronen has publicly stated that he's encouraged by the fact that Hulu has launched its own desktop media player.

One ostensible reason Hulu had been blocking Boxee was because Hulu's content partners didn't want to make it easy to watch internet streams of TV shows on an actual TV. But that's exactly what Hulu Desktop does. On the other hand, that could be the reason Hulu has been battling Boxee... because it has its own media player to promote.

Echodio is a solution for syncing iTunes libraries across multiple Macs and sending music to your TV or home theatre with Boxee. It's as simple as putting the songs you want to sync into your Echodio playlist, and letting them sync in the background with any other machines you've set up. Echodio can sync silently in the background, or show notifications, but keeping your Echodio playlist updated across all your Macs is automatic.

Echodio is also a way to store and back up your music library. It's launching with 1GB of storage, but it will eventually support plans that let you pay by the gig for as much storage as you need. It will also sync your tags and ratings across multiple computers, and a web-based player for your stored music is in the works now.

Zinc is a full screen browser for internet video. But that description doesn't really do the application justice. Basically, it allows you to watch internet video on your television screen using a remote control almost as easily as a keyboard and mouse. You know, a lot like Boxee. But there's one major thing setting Zinc apart from Boxee: Zinc is based on Firefox. And that's going to make it awfully hard for content partners to detect whether you're using Zinc or Firefox, which means it'll be a lot harder for companies like Hulu to ask Zeevee (the makers of Zinc) to block access.

Zinc started out its life as the interface for a hardware set top box that ZeeVee wanted to charge $499 for. That business model didn't really pan out, so the company split is focus and started working on a $2500 enterrprise hardware solution that lets companies like hotels stream HD content throughout the building and the free Zinc media browser.

Version 3 which came out today has a smoother interface, more detailed information about videos and channels, and content from new sources including The CW, Revision3, and Netflix. You can either install Zinc as a standalone application or download and install a Firefox extension that will let you launch the Zinc interface from within Firefox 3.

Right now Zinc is Windows only, but a Mac version is due out next month.

[via NewTeeVee]

For the last decade or so people have been talking about how eventually the TV screen and computer monitor will merge. Over the last year or two, we've actually started to see that happen. More and more people are watching TV on their computers either using TV tuner cards or internet video from sites like Hulu. And computer apps like Boxee and set top boxes like Vudu are making it easier for people to watch internet content on their televisions.

Today both Boxee and Vudu announced new services. Vudu is partnering with internet radio station Pandora to allow users to stream personalized music stations over their TV/home entertainment system. And Boxee has launched an application for the iPhone that lets users turn their phone into a remote control for Boxee.

The Boxee iPhone Remote is available in the Boxee App Box, which was launched a few weeks ago. Boxee has been in the news a lot lately due to the company's battle with Hulu. After a bit of back and forth over whether Boxee users should be able to watch Hulu videos using the full screen Boxee browser for the TV (instead of visiting Hulu's web site using a computer), the folks at Boxee seem to be focusing on building a larger community of developers and applications around their platform. This weekend Boxee also announced support for Blip.tv content through a plugin available at the Boxee App Box.

Well that certainly didn't last long. This morning media center application Boxee launched a new build that has an integrated RSS reader that lets you watch online videos tied to an RSS feed. In other words, you can subscribe to RSS feeds for sites like YouTube, Google Video, and Hulu. You know, the site that asked Boxee to stop serving up its videos a few weeks ago.

The Boxee team figured that since the new build didn't mess with Hulu's service in any way, but simply used the publicly available RSS feeds to pull in videos just as you would if you were using a web browser like Firefox or Internet Explorer, that all would be kosher. Apparently they were wrong. Hulu today blocked access to Boxee's browser.

The move shouldn't be surprising. If the content owners that provide TV shows and films to Hulu didn't want Boxee serving up its videos in February, they don't want it doing so today either. Ultimately this means that Hulu's backers don't want to make it easy to watch the internet videos hosted on the site on your television. They'd rather you watch them the old fashioned way. You know, on your DVR while zapping past the commercials with your remote control.

A few weeks ago media center Boxee was forced to remove content from Hulu, and the request of some of the TV and film studios that produce the bulk of the content available on Hulu. Now Boxee is offering a new build that has a workaround that seems to be within Hulu's terms of service, and which may therefore be salvageable. Maybe.

Here's how it works. Boxee has launched a new build of its media center suite that includes an App Box, which is basically an App Store allowing users to find and install new applications and plugins. There's also a built in RSS reader optimized for feeds with video. It works with YouTube, Yahoo! Video, and Hulu.

In other words, as long as Hulu provides RSS feeds for its videos, you'll be able to find and watch them using Boxee. It's not as elegant a solution as the old built in Hulu support. But it will let you navigate Hulu using a full screen interface and a remote control instead of your keyboard. Unless Hulu eliminates its RSS feeds.

The new version also adds a much-needed auto-update feature.

The latest build is considered a "bleeding edge release," which means there may still be some (or a lot of) bugs to work out. The new version is currently available for Mac. No word on the Linux or Windows versions.

Update: The Linux version of Boxee should get the new features in a release scheduled for March 24th.

Update 2: Well, that didn't last long. While it's certainly nice to have a built in RSS reader, you can no longer use it to watch videos from Hulu. The site has blocked Boxee's browser.

Hot on the heels of TV.com, cross-platform media application Boxee will be removing all video content from Hulu Friday. Apparently Hulu's content partners are becoming less than pleased with the way third party web sites and applications are using Hulu content. Which honestly makes just about zero sense.

What sets Hulu videos apart from the TV episodes you can download for free from BitTorrent trackers is that Hulu includes ads and requires you to be sitting in front of a computer with an active internet connection in order to watch. In other words, Hulu and the studios that own the rights to the videos you're watching are able to make money off of the videos you watch. And that's true whether you're watching videos at Hulu.com, TV.com, or using a third party application like Boxee.

Apparently the folks at Hulu aren't particularly pleased with the situation either. In a blog post, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar says the company is only asking Boxee to remove content because of requests from content owners.

There are still a few other third party apps that still provide access to videos from Hulu. But it's anyone's guess how long they'll be around.

Update: Turns out Boxee for Windows is still in private alpha. See the comments below.

I've got two good pieces of news regarding media center application Boxee. First up, it looks like the Windows version of the app has come out of private alpha and is now available for anyone to download. Second, a third party developer has come up with a nifty trick for getting Boxee to work with Windows Media Center.

Windows Vista Media Center does a great job of letting you watch and record live TV, but it kind of stinks when it comes to web video. Boxee, on the other hand, provides an awesome interface for accessing web video from Hulu, CBS, and the BBC iPlayer without a web browser. But it doesn't do live TV.

The folks at Missing Remote, along with media center developer Andrew Cherry came up with a solution: a way to use the two apps together almost seamlessly. Basically you just download and run a script and a Boxee icon will show up in Windows Media Center. By default it hangs out in the Pictures and Video area, but you can move it to the TV and Movies section if you like.

When you click the icon, Windows Media Center will be minimized and Boxee will launch. When you exit Boxee, Windows Media Center should come to the forefront. If it doesn't (as was the case several times during my test), just hit the green button on your media center remote control, assuming you have a media center remote control.

This solution isn't perfect. For starters, you have to make sure to exit Boxee when you're done, because if you don't your Boxee videos could keep playing in the background while you're using Windows Media Center. And because this is just a way to launch Boxee, not to actually make it part of Windows Media Center, it won't work with media extenders like the Xbox 360.

You can check out a video of Boxee working with Windows Media Center after the break.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

Cross-platform media player Boxee has added support for full length videos from ABC.com to it's Mac client. Boxee's Ubuntu and Windows software can't handle ABC video yet, but support is on its way.

Today's update is significant, because up until now ABC's web video player has been something of a walled garden. While CBS, Fox, and NBC have been making their videos available for distribution on Hulu, Fancast, AOL TV, MSN TV and a variety of other outlets, if you want to watch full length episodes of ABC shows you're pretty much stuck with the ABC web site.

ZeeVee's ZViewer does offer a full screen interface for perusing ABC videos, but video playback is rather clunky since you have to click a button on the screen to resume playback after each commercial. Boxee lets users navigate through the whole video with a remote control. No mouse required.

Boxee is a media center application for Mac, Ubuntu Linux, and Windows that's based on the open source XBMC project. The Mac and Ubuntu versions of the media suite have been available to private alpha testers for a while now, and over 200,000 people have signed up so far. Last week the Boxee team removed the private label and opened the alpha up to all Mac, Ubuntu and AppleTV users who want to use the software.

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.

Almost a year ago, I suggested that if Microsoft would add support for Hulu to Windows Media Center, it would launch a whole new way for people to watch TV. Web video today is designed for people to watch while sitting hunched over a laptop. But Microsoft and other companies have been putting out media center applications for years that are designed to let you enjoy the media on your computer and from the web from the comfort of your couch.

Now that you can stream full length television episodes from web sites like Hulu, it only seems natural that you should be able to access them using a media center application. Or maybe I just say that because I prefer web video and an HDTV antenna to paying for cable.

Microsoft has yet to add support for Hulu, even though you can watch Hulu videos at the MSN Video site. But the developers behind the open source media center applicaton Boxee have done it. The latest version of Boxee was released today and it adds support for streaming video from CNN, Hulu, CBS, YouTube, and Comedy Central.

Boxee is still in Alpha, and you need to request an invite to install it. The software runs on Mac and Linux, and today's update brings support for the AppleTV. A Windows version is expected soon.

You can see a video of Boxee in action after the break.

[via eHomeUpgrade]