Deals.Woot

The descriptions of this all managed to side-step any mention of football. American football. The NFL. College football. Conference networks. Team networks. Does anyone know if this thing will serve fans of the pigskin well during the Fall?

Ah yes, Boxee, AKA the big green device that doesn't fit on a shelf
-Hackers

Have owned a boxee since it was released. Love it. Would never go back to cable. Keep in mind that boxee's experience improves if you have Netflix and/or your own media files of movies, TV shows and the like.

I have a PS3 that I use to watch video and listen to music hosted on my computer via PS3 Media Server. I never play games or watch Blurays. Would this be a better option with a better interface?

@paulec252: came to say the same...nicely done sir.

I got back from the dentist today. He had a crown that fell out rebuilt on one side and cemented back in. He said it was basically like a new crown. I think he was preparing me for the bill.

What I thought would be $300 max turned out to be $1100 that he discounted to $800 since I don't have insurance. :(

There went all my Woot money. I'm depressed. Looks like I will have to stick to buying flashlights for a month.

Sidenote: Maybe I will call the dentist and ask why it was so much. A new porcelin crown would be that much. He did not have to do any prep work on the tooth, he simply recemented the crown. Could the lab charge that much for adding a little porcelin to one side of the crown? Any dentist out there.

do they sell accessories to make the top flat, and 'normal'?

i hate technology that tries to sell on visual design. just be good at what you need to do, looks matter less if it cost too much and doesn't accomplish tasks easily.

I never understood these things...Why not just put an HDMI cable from your PC to your TV...wouldn't that be $115 cheaper?

Owned one of these since release. Hardware is excellent, software is mostly fine. Issues may include DTS sound playback (varies wildly, depends on receiver), random crashes (for some), non-working volume control (depending on file format), and mandatory firmware updates which often break things. For in-home network media share playing, though, it can't be beat.

What @elition: said. Seriously. What is the advantage of this to someone (like me) who has a single TV already hooked up to a media playing PC via HDMI.

@shortcake49: WRONG, the Boxee Box and the Logitech Revue BOTH have built in browsers with Flash. I forgot to mention, they both do HBO Go too, thanks to the Flash support.

The Revue has smoother flash playback with less visual errors, while the Boxee Box is less likely to crash on a flash heavy site.

Also of note, the Revue and Roku have Crackle with movies, tv shows, clips, and original content, while the Boxee Box has Crackle, but only with original content and clips of tv shows. I'm not sure why Boxee doesn't get the full tv shows and movies too.

The Roku has no browser.

The fact that I can hook a hd to the box & play my content from it, and more importantly use it as a NAS is what pushed me to the"buy" button.

Person who said that better have been right.....

I also like the qwerty remote, and that I can basically play any pc content on it. hooking up my lt to the tv, dealing with the wireless kbb/mouse, etc it's all a PITA. THIS SHOULD CURE IT ALL!

Gotta say though - whoever designed the actual BOX needs a beating. I'm just praying I'll be able to gut the damn thing & make it work in some other container, though the remote is supposedly RF so hopefully I can hide it somehow....

@uls: You can use a program from your computer to stream any file to your PS3. You don't need to spend money. TVersity.

@dedicateddad: Dude, I don't see ANY comment above that says you can use this thing AS A NAS, only some comments that say it will play video off of an (existing) NAS.

(Tho maybe you were talking about a comment from elsewhere.)

I've had a Boxee Box for a while now and I absolutely love it (in fact, I'm watching Netflix on it right now). There are many many good things about it (including that it can be used as a NAS device).

However, there are a couple disadvantages. But let me stress again that absolutely none of these are deal breakers. First, the position of the keyboard on the remote is a little awkward, as it's sort of left justified. Basically, the Q, A, and Z keys are all aligned on the left side. Also, the keyboard side is difficult to see and therefore difficult to use in a dimly lit, movie watching environment. Second, Hulu still isn't available on it, although there are some work-arounds including TVersity or PlayOn, (I personally use PlayOn). Lastly, I was having some issued streaming content from a PC on my network without interruption, but the latest updates seem to have fixed that issue.

Hope this helps.

tl;dr -- buy it

I can't believe you guys downvoted that poor fellow on pain meds! :>

In for two. The remote makes it.

I remember looking at these when they came out; there were a number of issues with the software at that time, for local streaming.

-Video file names HAD to adhere to a very rigidly specific naming schema to show up at all.
-Videos simply would not play/show up, if the TV show or movie was not listed on IMDB.
-Severe issues playing back certain formats of 1080p video (stutter, bad decoding, sync issues)

Have these been fixed? I currently am using an HTPC, but would like to swap over to a low-power front-end device like this, and relegate the HTPC into dedicated server-only duty if possible. Only down side would be the apparent two-channel audio limitation (without an optical receiver)... would have expected at least support for 5.1 audio, if not 7.1 native on the device.
Bonus points if it can RDP, VNC, or stream network-mounted optical media; not sure if that'd be expecting too much from a media-consumption device like this.

@talespin...

Thats exactly my issue. I've been using XBMC on a revo 3610. I'd love a second device for another room, but until they open up the rigid rules to Boxee..I can't do it. Let me make my own nfo files, change the scraper, etc.

Why would you get this instead of a Roku Player for cheaper?

If I didn't have a google revue, I would be all over this. Buddy has one, I did not like the interface at all, but it's codec support is awesome thanks to it's XBMC roots.

NAVI-X is what makes this box great, it is an app you can download from one of the repositories on the device and it has TONS and TONS of content to stream. My buddy, once he had NAVI-X might just quite his cable and movie channels as all the movies he'd ever want are there.

I switched from a media PC to a boxee box for a few reasons...
-Noise: The boxee box is virtually silent. I have to hold my ear to it to hear any noise
-Power: The media PC was pulling ~150W of power, boxee box ~15W
-Heat:Stuck without central air this summer, any heat the hardware makes in the living room has to be dealt with by just a window unit.

While it's missing a few things my media PC did (hulu for one) I'm happy with it and wouldn't choose to switch back.

I know I'm late to the comment party, but I've had one of these since it's release. The first one I got was messed up, but newegg swapped me out within 2 days and I've been using the same one ever since. It's used a couple hours a day, every day since (2 days after) release, and I've been very pleased. I have the WD TV Live Plus as well, and while it's okay, the Boxee Box is way nicer to use.

also, the social networking, and the "watch later' applet is so handy. It allows you to forward internet videos (from android phones too using the app Queue It) to your boxee box for later viewing.

Ouch my balls, I just paid full price for one a month ago. But I do love it, so stupid simple to use and not a single playback issue yet. I also got the newest roku and honestly it's a pos. The boxee makes it look like some throw back piece of tech.

QUESTION - ROKU vs BOXEE.... now that the new Roku can play your own media why would you get the Boxee?

I had watched there launch for months prior and when they finally released I realized it doesn't have a full browser (or was blocked by Hulu - cannot remember) so the only Hulu was Huluplus that it would play.

I've read all the comments above... I think the roku streams fast enough, I'm fine with the roku interface, understand the Boxee remotes rocks and crackle is retarded because they just put commercials anywhere in the movie... so other then those why should I get the BOXEE over HD Roku with USB in?

Help me spend my cash (because I brush 2x daily - ha).