![]() The Boxee Box will tell you when it's discovered a drive, but it took longer for it to recognize a hard drive (11 seconds) than an SD Card (almost instantaneous). It also supports every file format you can think of. You can plug in a hard drive or memory card, and the device will scan for photos, music, and video. The Boxee Box includes two USB card slots and an SD Card slot for a reason. Plus, the Boxee application for the desktop has over 400 apps, and the company expects them all to migrate to this platform, including Facebook Photos and Twitter. Overall, right now the Boxee Box has a wider selection of apps than Roku or Google TV, and there's more than enough variety here to keep users entertained until Netflix and Vudu are up and running. If you're getting the feeling that the Boxee Box feels empty right now when it comes to premium content, you're right. Unfortunately, Boxee could only tell us that it's working with Hulu Plus "to announce a timeline," which doesn't sound that promising. Last but not least is Hulu Plus, the $7.99 monthly subscription service that will give Boxee Box owners full access to current seasons of popular shows, complete with 720p support but also commercials. Also MIA is Netflix, which will bring its vast number of movies and TV shows to this device by the end of the year. Boxee says to expect Vudu availability in the coming weeks. That's because the Vudu app, which will offer current Hollywood studio rentals, is still listed as coming soon. Still, nothing prevents these and other broadcasters from pulling a Google TV and blocking their goodies.Īt least for now, the Boxee Box's movie selection is downright pitiful. As we expected, Hulu blocks the web browser from loading content on this device, but ABC.com, CBS.com, Fox.com, and NBC.com, all worked. However, when we conducted a search for Big Bang Theory and other programs, the Boxee Box returned only clips. Full episodes of these and other shows were in plentiful supply. Under Shows we found plenty of popular programs, including How I Met Your Mother, The Daily Show, Family Guy (though only the first season), and South Park. On the free TV front, we were pleasantly surprised by the selection. Apps, Movies, and Shows are self-explanatory, while Files lets you tap into local media that's plugged into the Boxee Box. Watch Later lets you bookmark videos for easy retrieval. Friends lets you see what videos your Facebook and Twitter friends are sharing, whether it's on Boxee or not. On the home screen you'll see six choices: Apps, Files, Friends, Movies, Shows, and Watch Later. Only then could we jump in, set up our wireless network, and create a Boxee account.īoxee has seriously streamlined its interface since the company showed it off last January, and the result is a user experience that's pretty straightforward and focused on video above all else. The box took about five minutes to download necessary updates, and additional time installing them. Setting up the Boxee Box involved very few steps-plug in HDMI and power-but more time than we anticipated. We preferred the latter method most of the time, but had better results with Button mode the in the browser, especially when moving the cursor. You just press the Boxee logo to make a selection. It also offers two ways to navigate: a Button mode with a D-pad and OK button in the middle (similar to the physical remote) and a Gesture mode that lets you move the Boxee logo around your iPhone's screen to navigate on-screen menus. IPhone owners should definitely download the Boxee app, which lets you type using a keyboard you can see in the dark. While the small keys provided good feedback, the fact that the keyboard isn't backlit makes it difficult to enter text in a darkened room. The flip side has a full QWERTY keyboard, which is designed to make it easier to search for shows and other content. ![]() This layout is fairly straightforward, but we sometimes couldn't tell which end was up in a dimly lit room. One side of the black bar houses a D-pad, Play/Pause button, and Menu button. While the Logitech Revue with Google TV ships with a full keyboard and touchpad, Boxee tries to keep things simple with its two-faced remote. Under the hood is a 1.2-GHz Atom processor-with support for 1080p video playback-and 1GB of RAM. For such a relatively lightweight product, it takes up a fair amount of vertical space. Unfortunately, the awkward shape and bulkiness of the Boxee Box doesn't make it the most friendly device for stacking in your entertainment center.
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