by Christopher Breen, Macworld.com
Until recently, Boxee, the social-media-centric media-center application based on the open-source XBMC, was available only to the invited and bore the “alpha” label. Boxee is now open to all and has matured to the point where its developers consider the Mac, Windows, and Linux versions worthy of the “beta” name (a beta version hasn’t yet been developed for the Apple TV). With that consideration comes a reworked interface, consolidation of local and Web-based content within that interface, more content, expanded social networking options, and big plans for the future. I’ve had an opportunity to play with the new Boxee for a week and these are my impressions.
Boxee's Home screen
The means for doing this are the Home screen and Global menu. The Home screen is divided into two areas—at the top of the screen are a row of icons that include Photos, Music, Movies, TV Shows, Apps, and Files. Below you find a Feed column that includes links to content recommended by your Boxee friends. Next to it, a Featured column offers pictures and links to content the Boxee people believe is worth your attention. And to the right of the Featured column is a Queue column, where you see a list of all the content that you’ve added to your queue.
When you select an icon at the top of the Home screen and press Return, you’re taken to a screen devoted to that kind of media. Media screens include a sidebar (which you can hide) that let you do things such as view photos as thumbnails or in a list; filter movies, TV shows, and music by genre; and search for specific hunks of media within that category—all your Michael Jackson music, for instance. You can also click icons to tell the world what you’re viewing or listening to via a Share command, add a shortcut, get more information about a TV show or movie (if Boxee has identified the TV show and movie and can provide that information), or add the media to your queue.
The Movies screen
To play media, just double click on its name. Play controls appear at the bottom of the resulting Now Playing screen. You’re welcome to leave this screen by pressing the Escape key—the music or video’s soundtrack will continue to play in the background. You can quickly return to the Now Playing screen by clicking a Play icon in the upper-right corner of the screen.
Boxee lists copy-protected music and video—such as the movies, TV shows, and non-iTunes Plus music you’ve purchased from the iTunes Store—but it won’t play it. Regrettably, there’s no feature that filters out this protected content.
To leave a media page, press the Escape key and the Global menu appears, which contains these same media icons plus a Home icon as well as Logout, Settings, Queue, Feed, and History icons. Select the item you want with the mouse or arrow keys, press Return, and the appropriate screen appears.
The Global menu
The changes to the interface are welcome but they don’t eliminate the hierarchical structure altogether. For example, if you want to add a folder full of media that lives outside your home folder, you’ll need to dash into the Settings window and dig down until your find the folder you’re after.
Media wherever
Boxee now attempts to erase the line between local and Internet media. For example, when you bring up TV Shows and type “Strangers With Candy” into the search field, Boxee will show you not only the unprotected episodes of the series on your Mac, but also any episodes that are available from Comedy Central’s Website. Similarly, you can move to the Movies screen, type “Love” in the Search field, and see titles that contain that word that can be found either on your Mac or the Web. You now access Hulu content this way rather than through a specific Hulu app.
Unfortunately you can search only by title at this point. So, if you’re in the mood for a John Wayne western, you’d better know the title of the movie you want to see.
Increased content
The beta version of Boxee has a lot of content—157 items can be found in its App Library. This includes such well-known sources as Netflix, Pandora, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Discovery.com, NPR, Shoutcast, and Vimeo along with a whole host of other sources. And Boxee is actively courting developers to bring even more content to the application.
Boxee's App library
One area in which Boxee has broken from other media player applications is in adult content. Within the Appearance setting there’s a Hide Adult Feeds And Applications setting (enabled by default).
This is an interesting approach but not entirely unexpected. Boxee serves as a conduit for streaming Internet media and this kind of content is available from any Web browser. Boxee is simply being forthright about its ability to deliver adult content and leaving it up to users to decide whether or not they wish to view it. Concerned parents should know that the Appearance setting also includes a Set Adult Content Lock that lets them password-protect this option.
Social interaction
Another thing that separates Boxee from Plex and XBMC is its social networking component. Content discovery (buzz-speak for “finding stuff you want to watch and listen to”) is increasingly important and Boxee’s attempting to take advantage of people sharing their tastes with others. Similar to Twitter and Facebook, you can follow other Boxee users and see what they’re recommending. Likewise, they can see what you recommend. Boxee also includes support for Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, and Tumblr so you can post your recommendations to those services as well. (Currently the social networking implementation is buggy and doesn’t work consistently.)
The Flickr app
When you make a recommendation, Boxee does its best to link to something associated with your recommendation. For example, I recommended Bleu’s A Watched Pot album and Boxee linked to Bleu’s Last.fm page.
Given the ability to view adult content, you’ll want to be careful about whose recommendations you keep track of. Should someone you follow recommend an adult video, a link to that recommendation (complete with thumbnail image) will find its way onto your Home screen. This could be a real problem if you use Boxee at work or have a Mac configured as a media center attached to the family TV. Fortunately, you can remove these recommendations—just stop following that person and the recommendations disappears.
Rough edges
You shouldn’t take the “alpha” and “beta” labels too seriously. In fact, the later alpha builds of Boxee were more stable than the first beta releases. But the beta builds are getting better. If you’re upgrading from an older version of Boxee, it’s worth your while to search your hard drive for any existing Boxee files (this includes preference and support files), delete them, and install a fresh copy. I had a lot of problems with the Boxee beta—video anomalies, content that wouldn’t display properly, and the application locking up when I attempted to quit it—after installing it over a copy of the alpha. Once I removed all traces of the alpha version and installed the beta, Boxee was more reliable.
Into the future
Boxee has big plans. The company showed off D-Link’s Boxee Box—a set-top box for delivering Boxee content to an attached TV—at a variety of private events as well as at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It also claims to be working to integrate Boxee into other devices in 2010. Additionally, it’s putting together the Boxee Payment Platform, a system that lets content providers sell their media via Boxee (and Boxee users to purchase it). Those frustrated with an Apple TV that consumes only content from the iTunes Store, pay attention.
There are a lot of companies playing in the media-center space, but Boxee is moving in some interesting and ambitious ways. If you don’t have a copy of Boxee, it’s free and worth your while to give it a try—rough edges and all.
Showing posts with label watch streaming TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label watch streaming TV. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Friday, July 3, 2009
A lounge room revolution
The convergence between computers and TV sets – between the internet and lounge room – which has long been promised but has never quite arrived, seems to be upon us.
In October, Foxtel will launch a small innovation that could change everything for the TV industry.
It‘s called a powerline network extender, and simply connects a TV set in the lounge room with a computer in another room, through the electricity wires. A small device sits at the power points of each machine and connects them via the power grid in the house, eliminating the usual interference that’s caused by other things that are connected to it, such the fridge, microwave oven and lamps.
I haven’t seen it demonstrated yet, so I can’t guarantee it works as promised. But in a way, it doesn’t matter. NEC and others sell these things already as replacements for, or add-ons to, home wireless networks. And in any case, TV sets can already be connected to the internet via computers, either by wires in the same in room or wireless in other rooms.
The Foxtel plan later this year is more about marketing than technology.
Foxtel’s plan is to make a version of internet television that is easy to use, and then flog it. Of course, the last thing any subscription TV company will want to do is let its customers loose on the internet so they can stream channels from all over the world, along with YouTube and pirated movies, to watch in their lounge rooms.
Obviously it can’t stop us – or rather, our children – doing that at our computers. But if you connect to the internet after October via a Foxtel IQ box you will simply be able to download “catch-up” programming – several hundred shows and movies that you might have missed.
It’s not clear whether the Foxtel boxes will also provide access to the ABC’s excellent iView service, which is its own catch-up programming service, currently only accessible by computer. Hopefully it will.
The full convergence of TV and the internet, and the destruction of commercial television, has been talked about for at least ten years but has never happened.
It has not been prevented by regulation or by technology, which has long been available, but by two simple human truths: we need to be marketed to, and we like to watch TV with someone else, not alone.
Nobody has marketed internet TV – and packaged it up so it can easily be done by non-geeks – because you can’t make money from it. Internet TV is basically a money destruction machine.
Foxtel’s most recent generation of set-top boxes, both standard and high definition, have been capable of connecting to the internet and streaming squillions of global channels and movies to us for at least 12 months. But this has been held back because Foxtel wants to “get it right”.
No doubt that means getting the business model right, and that means a “walled garden”: that is, you won’t be able to go wandering off wherever you like, but you can use the internet to download specific movies and programmes from Foxtel.
Eventually, the uncontrolled internet will steal into our lounge rooms, as it did long ago into our studies, offices and kids’ bedrooms. But the reason that did not produce an entertainment revolution and the end of commercial television as we know it, is that we watch TV together (even, sometimes, with our children).
I’m writing this column on a nice big Macintosh screen at my desk at home, almost as big as a TV and with a better picture. Occasionally, between articles, I’ll look at something on YouTube, or the ABC’s iView, or even a bit of a movie.
But when I watch TV, I do it with my partner, on the couch: it’s the main thing most couples do together. And setting up the telly to connect to the internet, with a wireless keyboard or complicated remote, is just too hard. Who can be bothered? There’s usually something on worth that’s watching, or perhaps just a replay of the 2000 Grand Final to while away the hours.
Anyway, from October, Foxtel is apparently going to start marketing the internet to us and making it easy – either through its new internet-enabled boxes or by connecting old boxes to a computer in the next room via a power line extender.
In October, Foxtel will launch a small innovation that could change everything for the TV industry.
It‘s called a powerline network extender, and simply connects a TV set in the lounge room with a computer in another room, through the electricity wires. A small device sits at the power points of each machine and connects them via the power grid in the house, eliminating the usual interference that’s caused by other things that are connected to it, such the fridge, microwave oven and lamps.
I haven’t seen it demonstrated yet, so I can’t guarantee it works as promised. But in a way, it doesn’t matter. NEC and others sell these things already as replacements for, or add-ons to, home wireless networks. And in any case, TV sets can already be connected to the internet via computers, either by wires in the same in room or wireless in other rooms.
The Foxtel plan later this year is more about marketing than technology.
Foxtel’s plan is to make a version of internet television that is easy to use, and then flog it. Of course, the last thing any subscription TV company will want to do is let its customers loose on the internet so they can stream channels from all over the world, along with YouTube and pirated movies, to watch in their lounge rooms.
Obviously it can’t stop us – or rather, our children – doing that at our computers. But if you connect to the internet after October via a Foxtel IQ box you will simply be able to download “catch-up” programming – several hundred shows and movies that you might have missed.
It’s not clear whether the Foxtel boxes will also provide access to the ABC’s excellent iView service, which is its own catch-up programming service, currently only accessible by computer. Hopefully it will.
The full convergence of TV and the internet, and the destruction of commercial television, has been talked about for at least ten years but has never happened.
It has not been prevented by regulation or by technology, which has long been available, but by two simple human truths: we need to be marketed to, and we like to watch TV with someone else, not alone.
Nobody has marketed internet TV – and packaged it up so it can easily be done by non-geeks – because you can’t make money from it. Internet TV is basically a money destruction machine.
Foxtel’s most recent generation of set-top boxes, both standard and high definition, have been capable of connecting to the internet and streaming squillions of global channels and movies to us for at least 12 months. But this has been held back because Foxtel wants to “get it right”.
No doubt that means getting the business model right, and that means a “walled garden”: that is, you won’t be able to go wandering off wherever you like, but you can use the internet to download specific movies and programmes from Foxtel.
Eventually, the uncontrolled internet will steal into our lounge rooms, as it did long ago into our studies, offices and kids’ bedrooms. But the reason that did not produce an entertainment revolution and the end of commercial television as we know it, is that we watch TV together (even, sometimes, with our children).
I’m writing this column on a nice big Macintosh screen at my desk at home, almost as big as a TV and with a better picture. Occasionally, between articles, I’ll look at something on YouTube, or the ABC’s iView, or even a bit of a movie.
But when I watch TV, I do it with my partner, on the couch: it’s the main thing most couples do together. And setting up the telly to connect to the internet, with a wireless keyboard or complicated remote, is just too hard. Who can be bothered? There’s usually something on worth that’s watching, or perhaps just a replay of the 2000 Grand Final to while away the hours.
Anyway, from October, Foxtel is apparently going to start marketing the internet to us and making it easy – either through its new internet-enabled boxes or by connecting old boxes to a computer in the next room via a power line extender.
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