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New Boxee box revealed with DVR / builtin tuner - Page 2

post #31 of 156
10/10/12 at 12:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

LOL, you'll never see 2/3 of those features at a price point you will be willing to pay.
I love how people are starting to hype this up in their minds as the new low-cost TiVo-killer for OTA -- very reminiscent of the DTV Pal DVR pre-release hype.
A lot of people seem to have this bizarre notion that just because OTA is free, quality devices for recording/viewing/processing it should be dirt cheap. Unrealistic at best.

If it did the slam dunk, I would be willing to pay $600-$800 per box. I would probably get two. The key however is the interface. If it is hard to use or confusing, then my wife wont use it, whch is a deal breaker. This is why I have not built a HTPC.
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post #32 of 156
10/10/12 at 12:37pm
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Originally Posted by stepmback View Post

The key however is the interface. If it is hard to use or confusing, then my wife wont use it, whch is a deal breaker. This is why I have not built a HTPC.

Is a Harmony remote confusing? I can do (which means anyone can smile.gif) virtually everything on your list via my Harmony.
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post #33 of 156
10/10/12 at 1:01pm
...unless the wife or guests don't keep the Harmony pointed at the devices being powered on and controlled, and something doesn't work. They then press that activity again, except the TV now goes off wink.gif. Harmony remotes are great as long as you use them properly.
Quote:
The key however is the interface.
If it's like the current Boxee, then it'll be easy for the wife, guests and even kids to use.
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post #34 of 156
10/10/12 at 2:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brajesh View Post

...unless the wife or guests don't keep the Harmony pointed at the devices being powered on and controlled, and something doesn't work. They then press that activity again, except the TV now goes off wink.gif. Harmony remotes are great as long as you use them properly.
If it's like the current Boxee, then it'll be easy for the wife, guests and even kids to use.

Yup, my wife still gets caught when trying to switch activities. Or if the remote gets dropped it will sometimes reset or go back to the "home" screen where it isn't controlling anything. Then I get texts or a phone call asking why she can't seem to change the channel or turn down the volume.
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post #35 of 156
10/10/12 at 3:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles R View Post

Most of them are still being recorded when I begin so the client has to be smart enough to let me read the file and even smarter to let me go beyond the time I started viewing it.
With WMC even the Xbox 360 client would stop at the point it was recorded when you first began viewing.
Interesting point. I know with the WD Live I can play an actively recording .ts file but I don't think I have ever tested what you are referring to. I'll give it a try tonight. I'll give the recording a couple minutes head start and then start streaming from the WD Live and see what it does.

Well, the WD Live seems to do OK. I started recording the CBS news on the media-PC and let it go for about 4 min, then I started streaming the active .ts file on the WD Live. It played right through the 4 min mark and just kept going for the rest of the news broadcast. The only limitation I noticed was the info bar on the WD showed the length of the recording to be 4 min and did not change through the playback. No big deal, the playback worked just fine.
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post #36 of 156
10/10/12 at 4:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

The only limitation I noticed was the info bar on the WD showed the length of the recording to be 4 min and did not change through the playback. No big deal, the playback worked just fine.

Good to know. Could you pause, skip back and forward? At some point I'll look at XBMC and its supported back-ends. I had a WD TV Live in my exercise room and got a WD TV Hub to replace it for just a little more. I have already sold the WD TV Live and I'm trying to decide if I want to keep the Hub as my wife hasn't missed it yet. I tried live streaming back when the Boxee Box supported HDHomerun tuners and if I remember it would keep streaming but if I tried to skip back it got confused and basically stopped working.
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post #37 of 156
10/11/12 at 5:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles R View Post

Could you pause, skip back and forward?
Pause, yes, with no problems on the restart. FF works but is slow (4-8x); RW is problematic. I suspect those issues are due entirely to the lack of power with my 10 yr old media-PC rather than with the WD Live -- the simultaneous tasks of recording and serving are stretching the hardware to its limit. If the media-PC is only doing the task of serving (not recording and serving at the same time), the FF/RW functions on the WD are much better.
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post #38 of 156
10/11/12 at 5:58pm
I have an original D-Link Boxee Box (and a Popcorn Hour and a...) which I am fairly happy with. It does MOST of what I want MOST of the time, but is far from perfect. The sad truth is none of these third party media streamers does everything. Even sadder, the only ones that come close to stable, user-friendly wife-acceptable performance have a name like Scientific Atlanta or Motorola on the front, probably cost $1,000 each to manufacture, and we are only "allowed" to lease them from our CATV (or sat) providers.

I wish D-Link well with their new offering, and may buy one, after the dust settles. But as long as these extenders are geared to videophiles and not mainstream users, they will only sell thousands, not millions of them.
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post #39 of 156
10/12/12 at 6:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Satori84 View Post

I have an original D-Link Boxee Box (and a Popcorn Hour and a...) which I am fairly happy with. It does MOST of what I want MOST of the time, but is far from perfect. The sad truth is none of these third party media streamers does everything. Even sadder, the only ones that come close to stable, user-friendly wife-acceptable performance have a name like Scientific Atlanta or Motorola on the front, probably cost $1,000 each to manufacture, and we are only "allowed" to lease them from our CATV (or sat) providers.
I wish D-Link well with their new offering, and may buy one, after the dust settles. But as long as these extenders are geared to videophiles and not mainstream users, they will only sell thousands, not millions of them.

I DL shows that I could easily DVR just to avoid the crappy DVR UI. I've never seen a Cable/Sat box with a nice UI. My wife makes me set all her DVR recordings because it's such a PITA.

I won't be preordering one of these, that's for sure. Boxee will need a much better gameplan this time around.
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post #40 of 156
10/12/12 at 11:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brajesh View Post

Depending on where you are, there are a few great indoor antennas that get the job done. The Mohu Leaf is one such antenna. But, if you're really far away from broadcast towers, just install a full size antenna in the attic. You can do it yourself vs. hiring an installer to put it on the roof.

I tried quite a few internal antennas, but they just didn't work well where we are. People close to us have external ones installed by the two installers left for 6 million people. They seem to do fine. The installers are convenient, make sure they select the best high end antennae, things are grounded according to code and deal with all wiring. I just don't think the vast majority are going to spring for the hassles with antennae and the wiring involved. At least the HD antennae, which don't require the lower frequency capabilities, are smaller and easier to deal with.

My best guess:

- the OTA approach will fail as few want a return to the past, although I see the appeal
- what you really want is Internet PVR capability but there doesn't seem to me a legal way to do that
- Boxee has boxed themselves in. They had a good idea, failed and won't get a 2nd chance anymore than mvix us did. Too bad as their HD-audio problems was not even something most people cared about. The OTA PVR thing is just seems old school. They might as well include a free lp player with it.
- I can't believe Apple would be so foolish as to be building in PVR capabilities into the ATV. The world is just not going that way anymore then it is moving towards people backing up Bluray disks.

Philip
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post #41 of 156
10/12/12 at 11:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by aaronwt View Post

There is no such thing as an HD antenna.

They just don't need lower frequency support. A UHF antennae will work, but it's pretty common for people to refer to upper frequency antennae as HD antennae.

Philip
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post #42 of 156
10/12/12 at 11:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by space2001 View Post

What Boxee needs to do is share free channels.
Get everyone with a Boxee to share there channels over the internet, and do a cloud pvr. While this will use a lot of bandwidth. Imagine how many free channels everyone will get.

Which free channels are you talking about? Sounds like having Boxee users distributing network shows recorded OTA. Don't think that will fly.

Philip
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post #43 of 156
10/12/12 at 12:21pm
+1. Cable and satellite companies already don't like what Boxee is doing, so if they go the way of Aereo (which is already getting challenged on what it's doing) with free sharing on top of it, forget it.
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post #44 of 156
10/12/12 at 12:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pmcd View Post

My best guess:
- the OTA approach will fail as few want a return to the past, although I see the appeal
- what you really want is Internet PVR capability but there doesn't seem to me a legal way to do that
- Boxee has boxed themselves in. They had a good idea, failed and won't get a 2nd chance anymore than mvix us did. Too bad as their HD-audio problems was not even something most people cared about. The OTA PVR thing is just seems old school. They might as well include a free lp player with it.
- I can't believe Apple would be so foolish as to be building in PVR capabilities into the ATV. The world is just not going that way anymore then it is moving towards people backing up Bluray disks.
Philip

OTOH, many of us love being OTA-only because we get a better-than-cable picture with no ridiculous monthly delivery fee. And Apple is not known for being foolish.
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post #45 of 156
10/12/12 at 2:06pm
Cut the cable many years ago. I do miss ESPN during the football season (last years college bowl games were all on ESPN & Monday Night NFL). Can't stream any of the ESPN's (have apps on a revue & xbox360) because I only pay TWC for internet....have to have programing also to access ESPN, ESPN2, etc........
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post #46 of 156
10/12/12 at 3:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pmcd View Post


They just don't need lower frequency support. A UHF antennae will work, but it's pretty common for people to refer to upper frequency antennae as HD antennae.
Philip

Two of the major networks, CBS and ABC, in the DC area are on VHF. But my Boxee Box v1 has no problem picking up the local stations with the two Squareshooter antennas I have outside my condo. An inside antenna won't work for me. I tried almost a dozen indoor antennas back in 2001/2002 to try and get reception for my HD recordings. In the end I setup an HTPC at my GFs house to record my HD shows, and then I would swap out a removable hard drive every weekend and bring the drive home to transfer to my network storage for viewing the HD content over my network on my HDTV from another HTPC. But when the Squareshoters came out in 2004, I finally had an unobtrusive antenna that worked for my HD stations that I could mount outside. Although I needed to put up two to get all the stations in the area. Although since getting FiOS 5+ years ago, I rarely use OTA.
Edited by aaronwt - 10/12/12 at 4:00pm
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post #47 of 156
10/13/12 at 7:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

And what would that price-point be for you.

149$
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post #48 of 156
10/13/12 at 7:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles R View Post

Is a Harmony remote confusing? I can do (which means anyone can smile.gif) virtually everything on your list via my Harmony.

it is confusing, I just want to bind a button to do one thing, and it didn't seem it could do that (you have to make events, or some such name) - so it got ditched.
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post #49 of 156
10/16/12 at 7:08am
Thread Starter 
http://blog.boxee.tv/2012/10/16/boxee-box-past-present-and-future/
Quote:
Boxee Box Past, Present, and Future
By Avner Ronen
Today we announced a new device, Boxee TV, that will be available exclusively in the US this November. It brings together Live TV, Internet Apps and a first-of-its-kind Cloud DVR. The new device is running a new chipset from Broadcom and software that we wrote from the ground up. You can read more about it here.

At the same time, we are also working to release a separate update to the Boxee Box to update the Flash player and fix some key bugs. After this update the Boxee Box will go into maintenance mode. We will discontinue its distribution and will not be releasing any additional major updates.

The Boxee Box launched in Nov. 2010, and it was an exciting milestone for us. Since Boxee started, we wanted to see it running on a dedicated device and our partnership with D-Link made it happen.

Over the past couple of years we have released several major updates, numerous minor updates and added hundreds of apps. Earlier this year we launched Boxee Live TV, which added the ability to access over-the-air broadcast and the basic tier of cable (Clear QAM) in North America.

Our small team has poured our hearts and souls into the Boxee Box and it has been great to meet users from all over the globe. Some loved it, some wanted more features, others complained, but everyone was passionate. We hope you have enjoyed it and will continue to use it in your living rooms, dens, bedrooms or wherever else you set it up (I met one guy who installed it in his yacht!). If you are living in the US, we would love for you to continue our journey with us and order Boxee TV when it comes out.

Best,
Avner

http://boxee.tumblr.com/post/33687492774/introducing-boxee-tv
Quote:
We are excited to announce Boxee TV, a new device that brings together broadcast TV Channels, DVR and Internet Apps into one simple experience.



With Boxee TV you’ll be able watch live TV broadcasts in beautiful HD from channels like ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS, Univision and many others. It works with antennas and unencrypted basic Cable that deliver the channels listed above, and has 2 tuners so you can watch one thing… and record another.



Working to create the best TV experience possible, we knew DVR had to be a part of the equation, but existing DVRs have limitations we wanted to avoid. Even the fanciest DVRs run out of space, and most require you to sit in front of the TV to watch your recordings.

So we created the first ever No Limits DVR. What does No Limits mean? Instead of storing your recording on a local hard-drive, Boxee TV uploads your recordings to the cloud. It means there are no limits to how much you can record and no limits to where you watch - on your laptop, tablet and, of course, your TV.



We’ve been playing with it for a while, and having a DVR that stores recordings in the cloud feels similar to the move from film to digital cameras. Film cameras limited the number of photos you could capture, which made you think twice before taking a photo. It’s the same with existing DVRs. The limited space and knowing that stuff will get deleted impacts your decisions about what to record in the first place.

Using our DVR is liberating. You need to try it to appreciate it, but it completely changes the way you think about recording. I am now recording The Office, Simpsons, Seinfeld, Friends, Glee, Modern Family, Sesame Street (while it lasts wink.gif), and 62 other shows… I am like a kid in a candy store. If you love TV, you will love our No Limits DVR.

No Limits DVR is rolling out to 8 of the top TV markets in the US: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia and D.C. We will be rolling out in additional markets later in 2013. If you choose to become a DVR subscriber you will be able to record as much as you like and watch it on any screen for just $14.99 a month.



Boxee TV also comes pre-installed with great apps like Netflix, Vudu, YouTube and Vimeo, bringing tens of thousands of on-demand movies, tv shows, and user generated videos to your TV. It’ll also come with music apps like Pandora and more as we grow.

We bring together the best of TV with the best of Internet Video, and add the magic of a cloud-based DVR. No other device can do that.



Boxee TV will cost $99 and will be available in Nov.

Sign up to get an email when it launches!
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post #50 of 156
10/16/12 at 7:12am
Thread Starter 
to recap: original boxee box will get one more update and thats it.

New Boxee TV: $99 dual tuner cloud dvr for $15 a month (thats if you want the dvr feature) in the top 8 US markets for now. Available in November.
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post #51 of 156
10/16/12 at 7:24am
No news about local stored content
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post #52 of 156
10/16/12 at 7:31am
I'm going to guess since it has a crappy SoC, it won't do anything but DLNA with no NFS/SMB Support. If this is true, as of today Boxee is dead.
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post #53 of 156
10/16/12 at 7:33am
Thread Starter 
http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/16/3507568/boxee-tv-unlimited-dvr-netflix-vudu-apps-99
Quote:
Boxee’s gone from hated pirate outsider to shaper of telecom piracy, and it’s done it by extending an olive branch to the largest and most entrenched interests in the business. XBMC and open source are gone now, replaced by a proprietary OS that’s built to support end-to-end content encryption and a policy compromise Avner describes as “very reasonable.” And Boxee’s deemphasized its famously comprehensive support for weird video files as well — weird video files that generally come from torrent sites. “We didn’t call it Boxee Box 2,” says Avner. “We called it Boxee TV.”
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post #54 of 156
10/16/12 at 7:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by watchy View Post

I'm going to guess since it has a crappy SoC, it won't do anything but DLNA with no NFS/SMB Support. If this is true, as of today Boxee is dead.

If it cant play content off my network like MKV files, then it is not going to fly for me either.
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post #55 of 156
10/16/12 at 7:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aero 1 View Post

http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/16/3507568/boxee-tv-unlimited-dvr-netflix-vudu-apps-99

Boxee is such a huge joke now. I'll be proud to watch them go belly up. I had a Boxee Box on day 1 and it works but it has major issues. My next purchase will be a new PCH or Dune, but never will I support Boxee again.
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post #56 of 156
10/16/12 at 9:09am
Jaw drop confused.gif! I'm not surprised about Boxee Box v1 and how they're planning to support it (or 'maintain' it in their speak), but Box v2 is already crippled even before it's out. Why? Based on SoC they've opted for, likely poor local media support. So, Box v1 is already the better product for local streaming, which isn't saying much. Fewer apps than before, so less a Roku alternative. So, fail there as well. Now, the DVR part. Record only to cloud? No local recording internally or via attached USB? Just plain stupid! This thing comes up short no matter how you look at it. Boxee, some free advice... decide on what you want to cater to and whom, and stick to it, flesh it out and be great at it. Them dabbling in a little bit of this and that leaves them master of nothing.
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post #57 of 156
10/16/12 at 9:21am
The reason is simple. I assume that the revenue streams Boxee thought they would get with Boxee V1 did not pan out, and they probably kept running into issues with content partners since Boxee was fairly friendly with local media.

Since us local content people are in the tiny minority, Boxee is focusing on the real cash cow which is subscription based revenue. They are basically trying to one-up Roku by providing a box that does a lot of what Roku does but can also time shift broadcast TV and doesn't require local storage to do it.

Anyone who thinks it will actually work at launch though, I have a bridge to sell you.

Hopefully Boxee V1 eventually can be repurposed to run some other software.

And, for us local content types, the options are dwindling if we want online and offline integration, the studios are making it tough for us (intentionally of course). They want us all to buy our BDs (which will get scuffed or scratched and need to be replaced) or buy their crappy UV versions of movies with terrible quality, which amazingly, the average person is oblivious to.

Funniest aside in all of this. Many people who see a movie playing on my TV that is being streamed are wowed with the quality, and don't understand how it is possible. They simply assume that DVD/Netflix quality is as good of a picture as is currently possible and that a physical disk is necessary for good quality.
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post #58 of 156
10/16/12 at 9:23am
Thread Starter 
https://www.facebook.com/Boxee/posts/10151115657952781?comment_id=24746448&offset=0&total_comments=3
Quote:
Boxee Boxee TV does support file playback; it won't do artwork and identification like the Boxee Box does, but can playback most popular file types.
-Andrew

https://www.facebook.com/Boxee/posts/10151115590062781?comment_id=24746426&offset=0&total_comments=1
Quote:
Boxee We plan to upgrade to a Flash 11 player as well as fix the shutdown issue. While we really wanted to make the Boxee Box open to hacking like you're asking for, it's not possible given agreements with premium content providers who require the box to be locked down to distribute their content on it.
12:09pm (18 minutes ago) · LikeReply
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post #59 of 156
10/16/12 at 9:30am
If they had made the new box at least record locally as an option, I would've bought it as a complementary box to a dedicated local streamer. Uploading hi-def caps to cloud makes little sense. If you keep the original MPEG2 transport streams, they're going to be huge. So, Boxee will have to re-encode them to something smaller, in fact significantly smaller, to upload. And, that great HD quality they claim you can get local channels with will no longer be real HD in the cloud.

Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I don't see the new box succeeding for the reasons I've outlined, not to mention the monthly fee for free OTA TV. For simple OTA DVR'ing and cloud-recording, the already released Simple.tv and Aereo (unless content providers and cable cripple them) have better chances to succeed.
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post #60 of 156
10/16/12 at 9:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aero 1 View Post

https://www.facebook.com/Boxee/posts/10151115657952781?comment_id=24746448&offset=0&total_comments=3
https://www.facebook.com/Boxee/posts/10151115590062781?comment_id=24746426&offset=0&total_comments=1

Good luck with that. It probably can playback 720P AVC with DD 5.1 as the top end spec video file. Almost zero percent chance it can playback 1080P BD rips.
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