My last posting float the idea of Apple expanding its App Store to the Apple TV. In it, it held up Boxee as the type of compelling application that would result. Well, I have a cofession to make. At the time, I hadn’t used it. My exposure to it was solely from videos posted by the Boxee people on their site. I had applied for an alpha invite, I just handn’t been granted one.
Shortly after that post, I received my invite, and, within an hour, had used the wonderful atvusb creator to create a patchstick and install XBMC and Boxee on my Apple TV. The patchstick leaves the Apple’s software complete functional, it simply adds an menu for Boxee, XBMC, and updating the two, to the main frontrow menu of the Apple TV. So, you can still purchase / rent Apple content, if that is your thing, and still have the whole iTunes syncing functionality going on, you just have this orthoginal Boxee funtionality as well.
So, has Boxee lived up to my expectations? Absolutely. Its interface is slick. The social media recommendations are nice. The local media management could use some work in terms of organizing your media. There are better methods that hierachial directory organization for this sort of thing. Quite frankly, since I’d already had to convert every thing to iTunes compatibile formats for the Apple TV, I still use Apple’s interface for that sort of thing. The codec support is fantastic. However, its the internet media interfaces, particularly last.fm integration on the audio side and Hulu, CBS, and WB on the video side. I used it for a solid two weeks before Apple’s automatic 2.3 software update wiped it out. Fortunately, the atvusb creator was updated after a week, so I just got up and running again. I find myself using the Apple TV on a daily basis now, and that certainly wasn’t the case before.
There’s definitely room for improvement. The aforementioned interface for orgainizing media, the lack of direct access to your iTunes content, and little tweaks here and there. The Flickr module should grab high resolution versions if available, give you access to your group pools, and let you browse the forums. Boxee will play VOBs from ripped DVDs, but there is not way to navigate the menus. You find little things like these all over the place, but there are several updates to the software a week, and it is evolving rapidly while remaining remarkable crash free (they do happen on occaision).
I am, however, finding that the Apple TV is becoming a limiting factor in the equation. The CPU, GPU, memory constraints, and @#$#! six function remote of Apple’s $229 hobby product keep an upper limit on what you can do with non-Apple media, and even that is limited (2.5 Mbit HD, indeed). With the recent announcement of Netflix support the Mac and Boxee’s integration to it in their latest release, I would seriously consider a Mac Mini if I didn’t already own an Apple TV.
Overall, I’m very impressed…to the point that I may even consider upgrading my hardware just for Boxee.
