![]() ![]() It’s entertaining for sure–but when it comes to set-top boxes, entertainment value is less critical than convenience. I’m still trying to make up my mind about the Boxee Box’s attractive-but-idiosyncratic industrial design. And when I asked about Netflix Watch Instantly, Ronen told me that Boxee and D-Link “werent demoing” that service, and that the companies would have more news about built-in services before the Box hits stores. The Box I saw today appeared to support Hulu, but it’ll be a miracle (and at odds with history) if Hulu doesn’t try to block it. But it’s still not entirely clear what services will be baked into the Box when it ships in November. As always, the user interface looks fresh and fun, if a bit dense with options.īoxee recently announced that it’s partnering with four online movie stores to bring films to the Box, and it has relationships in place with Internet video powerhouses such as Revision3. The software is similar to Boxee’s clients for Windows, the Mac, and Linux, and includes a built-in WebKit browser and Flash support which give it the technical chops to play back nearly all the video the Web has to offer. The Boxee Box will sport both 802.11n wireless and Ethernet networking, and will come with an RF remote control with a QWERTY keyboard on its backside. ![]() And Ronen told me that it will enable the Box to comfortably play 1080p video–stuff that’s stored on a home network at first, and streaming 1080p from online sources as it becomes available. The silicon switcheroo helps to explain why the Box will reach TV fans later than Boxee and D-Link originally expected. That’s news because the original version that Boxee showed off packed an Nvidia Tegra 2. ![]() More surprising: The Box will be powered by an Intel Atom CE4100 processor. (Amazon buyers will get their Boxes a week before other folks.) They say the $200 gizmo will ship on schedule in November, and that they’re taking pre-orders via starting today. The two companies are releasing some new tidbits about the Box today. I met with Boxee CEO Avner Ronen and D-Link Director of Consumer Marketing Brent Collins this weekend to get a sneak peek of a nearly-final Boxee Box. And you know what? Despite the avalanche of competition it’ll face, it still looks pretty cool. Little Boxee, in other words, will face daunting competition from some pretty formidable rivals. And it’ll compete against the all-new Apple TV, set-top boxes and TVs based on Google TV, the first devices that support Hulu Plus, and a bevy of other methods of getting video off the Internet and onto an HDTV. Now, after a bit of a delay, the companies are getting ready to ship the Box in November. When Boxee and D-Link unveiled the Boxee Box in late 2009, things were pretty quiet on the Internet-TV-in-the-living-room front. ![]()
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