The one-stop media centre - Review Boxee

Boxee plays all formats of video, audio and pictures. It can also play DVDs from DVD Rom drive, download info from IMDb on the fly

There are signs that things with your TV will improve. Despite over 200 channels streaming high-quality pictures using a DTH or an IPTV feed, you get to see what the broadcasters want to show. So the prime time slot is hijacked by all the saas-bahus of the world, leaving those who hate soaps with very few options. Broadband did come to the rescue, since they could stream videos from YouTube, download electronic content likes songs and movies and watch the content on demand. The iTunes store from the Apple even streams live television shows. So, if you missed Bart and Homer having fun in The Simpsons, you could always have it streamed on your computer. But this had a problem: the small computer screen. And, all said and done, most computers are not as user friendly as the TV. Though the front row on the Apple computers and the Windows Media Centre on the Windows PC made browsing media slightly better, a company called Boxee is improving things.

So, what is Boxee? As per Wikipedia, it’s a cross platform (it runs on a Windows, Mac and Linux) media centre with a 10-foot user interface— it’s designed to be run on a TV with a TV Remote—but built in social networking features.

Though Boxee is still in beta (it actually went beta on December 7), it is making heads turn, especially for features such as automatic album art download. It will run through your local library and download the album art automatically, so that you can see all what you have— right from the song, the movie it’s in, its singers, lyrics, reviews and the film’s trailer, depending upon their availability on the Internet.

Friend recommends a movie on a social networking site, and the movie is paid for, the Boxee will download and stream its trailer and other people’s review, so that you can figure out if the movie is worth your time. If it is available for free on the Internet, the Boxee will straight away stream the content for you. So, you need to no longer go hunting for that funniest video on YouTube, which your friends were talking about at the party. Just Google it and Boxee will play it for you.



The best part about Boxee is that it plays all formats of video, audio and pictures. It is your one-stop media centre. It can also play DVDs from your DVD Rom drive, download information from IMDb on the fly. It also has a built-in karaoke and many other audio visualisations (which I believe are a fancy only for the first few days). Besides, it can make multiple screensavers with your photo collection or the pictures you like on sites like Flickr, and your favourite music. And if you were always impressed with the Ken Burns (pan-and-scan) effect of photo shows, which only your friends with Macs could do, well Boxee does that also for you!

But there are limitations too. Boxee can’t play DRM (digital rights management) protected content. So, if you have bought music from the iTunes store, or maybe ebooks you bought from Audible.com, the boxee will not be able to handle these for you.
However, since Boxee is based on opensource software, it is only time before these hassles get sorted out.

This week, Boxee signed up with DLINK to make its hardware (expected to be available at $200 in 2010). So, if you are thinking of buying the next media centre for your home, wait and see how the market evolves in the next few months. And maybe you and I will get a chance to change our Idiot Box into something more fun, more useful and more interactive.
Just in case you don’t want to miss out on the action till the hardware is available, and are fine with using a 2-foot user interface (computer), go to www.boxee.tv and download the software and start enjoying media like you never did before.

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The above review appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday 13th December 2009