New Boxee box revealed with DVR / builtin tuner - Page 5

I wonder what the minimum Internet bandwidth requirement is to use the DVR service. The whole concept requires fast bidirectional bandwidth for recording and playback, whereas most services offer slow upload speeds. Lots of DSL users out there with 3Mbps down and 600K up. You can't stream Netflix in HD with only 3Mbps down. High speed Internet service usually comes with a stiff monthly price-tag. It would seem to be pointed at the higher tier users -- so why is walmart selling it?

None of this makes any sense to me.

I'm hoping to try out the BoxeeTV. If I could just get my GF to upgrade to FiOS it would be perfect. I could just record the content at home, into the cloud, and play it back in HD at her house. But she only has a 1.25Mb/s DSL connection. I currently take a Premiere TiVo over there whenever I visit for us to watch the shows I've recorded.

I just setup my Boxee TV a couple of hours ago. Setup was very quick and I had no issues.I have it set for a bunch of recordings tonight so I'll need to check them out. So far playing back the picture quality seems fine, but I only looked at it quickly. I haven't compared it to a recording from my TiVos and I didn't look too closely at it yet. I did notice the audio was only in 2.0 PCM from the two recordings I had instead of DD 5.1. I only had two recordings so far so I'll have to check again later tonight with other recordings.

Netflix has 5.1 DD+ audio on the two 5.1 titles I tried. Although on the Netflix test video stream I didn't see the resolution go higher than 720P.

Vudu worked well with 3 bar HDX and 5.1 DD+. I don't have a 7.1 DD+ title to check. And I did notice that the Disney titles aren't accessible from the Boxee TV just like the Boxee Box was.
Edited by aaronwt - 11/4/12 at 4:19pm

The whole concept of storing DVR video data in "the cloud" is insane. No matter how much Internet bandwidth we have in the future, it doesn't make sense to waste it shuffling the same data back and forth. The only advantage would be that you could watch your video from anywhere (without carrying it with you), but that's not worth the cost of moving it repeatedly, and entertainment industry forces would probably try to curtail such flexibility anyway. All streaming video is costly, but at least streaming it one way accomplishes something by transferring information.

so is this cloud only or can you also store locally.
Cloud is such a joke. In the near future all that free space will cost an arm and a leg and the bandwidth will be by the meg.
$400 a month to store your recordings and play them back LOL not too far from the 2015 prices.

There is no local storage option right now.

+1. It's why Boxee TV will fail. It may only succeed as a cheap OTA HD tuner with some Internet apps thrown in.

That is why they should be a cross coordination of recordings. if 50 people record a show. It should only be recorded once, from the main server and then streamed.

Talk about wasting storage and bandwidth in the cloud.

Boxee will run into legal trouble like Aereo if it did that. Cloud DVR just makes no sense IMHO; should be locally saved.

thank you for the information.
this thing is total fail.

I've posted some of my thoughts on the Boxee TV here:

http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=64407

Boxee's going to have to do a LOT of work if they want to be successful with this thing. I wish them the best of luck, but I just don't see it happening.

Things are pretty silent around the internet for a product like this.....is the thrill gone ?

Was there ever any thrill? I am using mine to mess around with. If I never had a DVR I would think it was extremely good. It does work fine but they still need to Iron out some issues. But the DVR service is still in Beta so I don't expect it to be flawless. Vudu, Netflix, and Youtube work very well on the BoxeeTV.

How sensitive are the tuners? Are they able to pull in all the channels like the OTA tuners in newer Sony/Samsung LCD TVs? Will it be able to pass 1080i over HDMI to a HDCP compliant projector? Does it pass 1080i over HDMI to a regular LCD/Plasma TV or monitor?

When Popular Science is dumping on you, I think you are in trouble:

Not Ready for Primetime
http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2012-11/boxee-tv-review

Not sure when the reviewer actually used their BoxeeTv, but mine does not have the issues they had.

Especially with comments like this I wonder when they used it. I've had mine since a few days after launch. The BoxeeTV Netflix app has 1080P content as well as 5.1DD+. The Boxee Box only has 720P content with stereo audio.

I've used the Netflix app on the Boxee Tv for easily over 15 hours of content. It is much better than the Boxee Box Netflix app and I actually prefer it over Netflix on my Roku2 boxes.

Boxee TV is a POS. I got it just out of curiosity; on eBay after 2 hours of testing it.

If it was truly a POS it wouldn't work. But it does pretty much everything they say it does. Of course I'm in an area that can use the cloud DVR service. But I find it difficult to call something a POS when it does what it's advertised as doing.

It might work but it is an utterly stupid product that I see as being destined for failure. I cut the cord to get rid of subscription fees so why would I pay twice the cost of my Hulu and Netflix subscriptions that provide me way more content just to record the limited channels I receive with my OTA antenna. Not to mention that I have to use my bandwidth to upload and download that content when I can just stream it once using Netflix or Hulu. Not to mention they nerfed the local file format support from the Boxee Box in a foolish attempt to kowtow to the media overlords and Boxee's legendary coding prowess that has a unit on the market with unfixed bugs from the day the product debuted in addition to new ones they brought with every update and reports of the same bugs on this unit as well. The fact that they are selling this at Walmart indicates the market they think they are aiming at.

The issue with that segment of the market is that they are not as willing to put up with the half-assery that Boxee has become known for and was more easily overlooked by tech heads getting software for free. They already screwed the pooch once with the way they handled the Boxee Box and neglecting their existing customers to bring out new hardware that doesn't even meet the capabilities of their old hardware, is aimed at a less technically savvy audience, and is so dependent on the these ISPs with their ever more restrictive bandwidth caps is just them setting themselves up for failure.

looks like WD gets it. http://www.hauppauge.com/wd/

this is the same tuner verified to work with the boxee box, so for anyone with a boxee live tv tuner and a WD live product you can now record tv direct to your HDD, no cloud storage, no US location restrictions and no monthly fees.

for the record - i have never used any WD live products but i know many people have more than one streamer from different brands so i figured i'd throw this out there.

Will it handle two of the tuners?

From their FAQ page:

Can I record one show while watching another with the WinTV-HVR-950Q?

No. The WinTV-HVR-950Q will only be able to record the program that is being viewed using the supplied software.

You will not be able to watch a digital channel and record an analog channel simultaneously or vice versa due to the fact there is only a single tuner on the WinTV-HVR-950Q.

Also, no EPG with WD + Hauppauge I believe.

Got an email from Boxee offering free DVR service for a year with purchase of the box. Had a specific code attached to claim it, probably got it because I used their beta PC app a long time ago.

Does this stream from a home network like the boxee box did or is it just from us now

As of yesterday yes. Before then No. They just gave us an update.

True, but only DLNA streaming, right? I don't think it can stream from shared network drives like the Boxee Box could.

I can see and stream from an HP MSS/WHS via UPnP -- and with DLNA enabled in my W7 PC I can see and stream files from a USB connected HDD, but streaming from the W7 PC/USB HDD is kind of 'funky' and I only tested it to see if it's possible... I mainly use the Boxee Box for streaming via SMB over my network from the WHS and occasionally from the USB drives connected to the W7 PC