boxee box... is this thing any good?

[___]

Hey people. I got fed up with my old old android set top box. I want to stream 1080p mkv files over my lan without the stuttering. So I looked around for a while and decided to buy a used boxee. Anyone have any experience with it?


What do you use for dlna and internet streaming?


Also I read about software and firmware issues. Is it safe to assume that there are enough hacks to still make this device appealing? Or is it more closed than they admit?

 

[EssoAir]

You're better off setting up your own HTPC where you control everything

 

[sebt3]

I do have one. in a nutshell it's just a box with xbmc. it is good for what it does, but nowadays you could probably have something better

 

[Super Roach]

Boxee box is fairly dead I thought - if it's the same company that based off XBMC. They made a great skin, then had some hardware which they updated, and forgot about the OSS side. They eventually folded.

The other difference was that it had a focus on the local side of files. Again testing my memory.

These days, XBMC is still far faster updated, and has a richer set of plugins you can really enjoy and make it be your own.

 

[___]

Yeah i got the boxee box today and my excitement has already dropped. Froze during WiFi setup, while scanning for my dlna media (and failing to find any on the upnp server) and also during normal menu interaction. I will fiddle with it on the weekend and see if factory resetting it will help. It came with the boxee + hacks mod installed by the former user. Seems like a good way to get more recent versions of xbmc.

 

[thatgui]

Hows the remote ? Always was the only interesting part for me - xbmc user for many years already. I would have recommended a Mini-PC (like one from Zotac or Shuttle) in combination with openelec.

I also tried using a "Android - Stick" with xbmc for Android once, but the results weren'tm very satisfying.

 

[___]

yes i have given up on the android system as a media player a while ago. My tablet is still cool for YouTube and such, but streaming on TV? Not really great. The remote is awesome btw

 

[TrashyMG]

I've picked up a second Raspberry Pi and set it up with Rasbmc.. Have it mounted on the same beam as my ceiling mounted projector.  Great for my massive video file collection, It plays every media file I throw out at it.. Full Surround sound via HDMI and everything.  Streaming wise, Youtube, streaming audio and such is good.. Only thing missing is Netflix. There was a great Amazon instant video plugin, but Amazon shut that down quickly. I need to try Hulu, some say that still works fine. 

Only complaint is the XBMC interface can be a tad slow at time, but doesn't affect the video playback what so ever.

$35 USD for the RPi

$5 Cheap plastic case

$7 for SD card.

---

$47 USD total 

The Wireless keyboard and Gyration Media remote I had laying around already.. 

 

[comradekingu]

Try http://boxeeplus.com/  dont know if its legit though

http://www.devil-strike.com/

http://www.boxeeboxwiki.org/obtaining-root-on-1-0-1-16319

https://github.com/quarnster/boxeebox-xbmc

Have fun

 

[___]

Yeah i have an RPI running an owncloud cardDAV server, so I already looked into using it as a media player but decided against it due to it's low power. I might have missed something though. We had an RPI at work running videos for an installation and the device was completely barren. No xserver, just core linux and a script playing videos over lan with mplayer rendering to frame buffer. The device was pretty much incapable of nothing more when running these videos. Output was SD and the videos were downloaded YouTube content encoded as h.264 in mp4 containers.


@comradekingu: thanks for the links! Found the one with the xbmc builts and the git already. The other ones are new.

 

[commander-beef]

Im using RPi as a media center to send stuff into other devices via xbmc UPNP / ssh..

 

[TrashyMG]

Yeah i have an RPI running an owncloud cardDAV server, so I already looked into using it as a media player but decided against it due to it's low power. I might have missed something though. We had an RPI at work running videos for an installation and the device was completely barren. No xserver, just core linux and a script playing videos over lan with mplayer rendering to frame buffer. The device was pretty much incapable of nothing more when running these videos. Output was SD and the videos were downloaded YouTube content encoded as h.264 in mp4 containers.

 
Sounds like you were running the base debian (raspbian) OS and not using the optimized player, The Raspberry pi is capable of playing video at 1080p at just about anything you throw at it... I use a premade image of a full fledge XBMC solution called raspbmc.

 

[thatgui]

 Output was SD and the videos were downloaded YouTube content encoded as h.264 in mp4 containers.

While the rpis "main" core has not much raw power, it is accompanied by a dedicated video decoder chip.

 

[Fzero]

[edit] Posted in wrong thread

 

[___]

Ah i see. that might have been the case. i did not set the system up. so maybe we had a debian core running and an mplayer that wasn't optimized. also it might have been a rev A board.