The Ion2 functionality includes the stuff the Crystal HD decoder does, plus a whole lot more.

The point for the Crystal HD decoder, is that it can be plugged into a system that lacks modern NVidia hardware (eg. most netbooks), to enable them to handle (up to) 1080i/1080p playback.

I'm thinking of adding one to my Samsung N210 netbook (which has no Nvidia hardware), as an internal PCIe card, someday perhaps.

The Nvidia hardware handles full hardware decode, deinterlacing, IVTC, and presentation to the display (etc..).

The CrystalHD chip handles full hardware decode, but something else still has to shuffle the bits to a display.

Cheers

The Frys near Anaheim had the Boxee Box on the shelves. 20 total units, 13 of them were open box returns with a $10 discount. Guess these aren't going over well with even the Frys crowd in the area.

The forums have been ablaze for months. The Box has a lot of promise, but the launch was botched on multiple levels unfortunately.

The Boxee team said too much up front and a lot of people held those words as promises. They also shipped software that was immature, having changed over from a very different UI previously.

I don't know when it will achieve balance, but the developers are definitely aware of the current situation.

This is probably the finest example of why it made sense for Boxee not to do their own hardware platform. All returns are at Dlink's expense if they go back to the factory. Boxee apparently doesn't make any money from the Box sales.

It's probably still doing a lot better than Google TV though.

Don't know about that. At work, I've heard exactly zero chatter about the boxee, talk so far is about Apple and Google TV.

I work alone, so I can't count the chatter here. But I know that I bought a number of Boxee Boxes for people and I have never heard anyone mention that they've even seen or heard of Google TV before.

It did make an impact in the media, and it's been blocked by a lot of network websites. I'd heard it was put on hold by Google, but I do see that the Logitech Revue, the only stand-alone product I've heard of, is still available for sale from Logitech. At least I can add it to the shopping cart. Using Firefox - it doesn't work using Google Chrome. Oops.

Yes, there's talk about Google TV, but that's because it's Google and it's an ambitious product. There was a lot of talk about the Kin, too, and I'm pretty sure that more Boxee Boxes have been sold than Kin phones I know that's a bad analogy because of different types of devices, but sometimes awareness isn't everything.

The best sellers, though, are Apple TV and Roku. Naturally, that's because they both have the best prices, and Roku arguably has the best product (AND the best price).


I think seeing a bunch of returns on a shelf and calling that a failure is a little premature. I, for one, am completely satisfied with the services my Boxee Box currently provides. I'm very disappointed that they didn't get the services they promised in the amount of time they promised them, but what they have already I'm more than pleased with.

I use the Boxee Box for three things and three things only:

1) watching local content - this thing is fantastic for watching my local media and no other commercial device out there does this better.

2) renting movies - I've now watched about a half dozen 1080p movies with full surround sound. Not many other set top boxes have vudu support, and no other streaming service delivers the video/audio quality that vudu does.

3) watching online video - IMO, no other box does this as well as the Boxee Box, and for one reason: Watch Later. I have a browser bookmark which, when I see a video I want to watch on the big screen later, I just click this bookmark and it's saved to my list. The next time I'm at my TV, I can just go into my list of videos and watch away. I click that bookmark at least twice a day. It's a great way to save great clips to show friends later, too.


So, as I've said before, I couldn't be happier with the services my Boxee Box provides already. The one missing component is Netflix, and that sounds so close to completion it's driving me nuts. I also have a feeling it's going to be one of the best implementations of Netflix of any device on the market at the moment, tied only with the PS3 (at least this is the impression I got from Avner Ronen when I was emailing him).

Oh yeah, and I love the keyboard on the remote. All set top boxes should have this or a really good remote app for all smartphone platforms. I refuse to ever use a d-pad to type ever again I do wish the keyboard was backlit, though...

The Roku box doesn't play local content. Seems, like all other Roku products, it's a slightly over-hyped POS. Remember their music players that arguably looked cool, but had to piggy-back on Slim Devices' software?

That's the only reason I didn't buy one, but as we've previously discussed, this is not an issue for the average consumer.


What? It's by far the winner in this game so far, easily outmatching AppleTV. It's cheaper and has more content available (and two models that can play 1080p).

I've actually been asked several times which box to buy, and my response is always the same: if you deal with the iTunes store a lot, go with the Apple TV, otherwise get a Roku.

When Apple TV came out, everyone said that the $100 price point would make it an easy buy for consumers. Well, the $60 price point for a Roku is a hell of a lot easier.

The Apple TV is a POS too. I'd still tell someone who wants a low-cost media player to stick with WDTV of some sort. I don't know anyone who doesn't *ALSO* want to be able to play local content. And everyone else I know that has a media player are the least techy people I know.

I didn't say it was a failure just because of that. I have no idea how many the store has also sold and people have kept. Seeing that many returned though and still sitting on the shelf would make me suspicious that something was wrong, and I'd do a bit more research before just buying it at the store. I've never seen that high of a percentage of returned vs new products at Fry's before, so it was a bit surprising.

My only problem with the Boxee Box is that I currently lack a TV to attach it to :-) If I didn't already have an extra Mac Mini waiting for my future TV, the box might interest me for playing back videos off my ReadyNAS. I've had far better luck with just streaming off a share then I have over DLNA.

One big thing helping Roku is Netflix. For a while, they had an ad on the inside of the Netflix DVD mailers. That alone probably exposed more people to both the streaming service and the $60 box option.

On the AppleTV side, I'm curious to see how many end up in non home use. One of the really handy features coming soon will be expanded Airplay support including in apps like Keynote. At Vigil, we had a monthly company meeting where the different teams showed off their work, and it was always a traffic jam at the presenter controls as people swapped around, and they juggled between Photo Viewer, PowerPoint and Windows Media Player to show things off. All the managers there have iPads, so future presentations could just happen by each of them beaming their content to the TVs wirelessly.

The Roku does play local content - though only on their $100 box, and only via an attached USB drive. I'd prefer it to have the option of doing this from a network share, there is a paid for ($15) add on channel that can stream from a webserver - again not an ideal solution, as it is third party, but an option.
So to correct Bruno Roku does do local content. Personally I don't have a great need for local streaming, I never purchased a significant number of DVDs, or downloaded torrents.

From a UI point of view I gather the Roku has the WDTV and the like beat. I've not used a WDTV, but I've seen complaints about it's sluggishness.
We've had out Roku for 2.5 years, so yeah I am biased. The UI and remote is simple enough for my 3.3 yr old daughter to select the next episode when her cartoon finished - yeah this is both good and bad
This weekend we brought it with us to the in-laws, it plugged right in and Just Worked. Later they wanted to watch "The Social Network" but where having issues with Comcast On Demand - it only took a few minutes to register our Roku with our amazon account and to search for the movie, $4.99 in HD (don't know if this was 720 or 1080).

How does Amazon's Video on Demand compare with Vudu for content and pricing? I think this is a fair comparison than comparing Vudu, per movie, with Netflix, all you can eat streaming (assuming you can find something you like...), due to the different pricing models.

I was aware of that, but I don't count Roku's local media playback because it's awful. I don't want to sneakernet my files to the box, and I don't want to pay $15 more to play that stuff. Compared to Boxee, nothing else matches its ability to play local content.


I'd love to hear why. It seems like a terrible inconvenience to me. I love throwing stuff on my NAS and having it automatically show up on my Boxee, all nicely sorted with artwork and episode info.


I can't imagine recommending the WDTV to anybody I know. The UI is terrible. And Bruno, all the people who have asked me about boxes like this have no local content to view anyway. They want to know how to get Netflix onto their TV. If that's what an average consumer wants, there's no cheaper and better way to do it than with a Roku. I just don't understand why you think it's a POS. Just because you don't like it?


Nobody would compare vudu and Netflix on a per-movie basis for one reason: Netflix only dreams of having the same movies vudu [or Amazon] does. vudu and Amazon have the big/recent movies, and Netflix unfortunately can't match that.

As far as pricing between vudu and Amazon goes, it's actually pretty easy to compare the prices. Promotions aside, Amazon typically charges $3.99 for recent movies (see this page for a random sample of fairly recent big releases). Those are all prices for SD streaming of movies to your desktop computer.

If you go through an Amazon VOD device you have the option to rent HD movies. In general, those prices will be $1 more than their SD counterpart (so we're at $4.99). Those are the two options you get with Amazon.

Now, on vudu the prices are essentially the same. They start at $3.99 for SD, go to $4.99 for HD 720p, but then they top out at $5.99 for 1080p.

The challenge in comparing the prices then comes down to comparing the quality of the streams. It looks like Amazon's bitrate tops out somewhere in vudu's mid-range, so the the comparison seems to work out pretty well. As far as I've seen, there's no other streaming service out there that matches vudu's highest quality video (which really is gorgeous, streaming or not).

Because everyone that asks ME about such a device wants/needs to play back local content. The online stuff is a nice treat. And the WDTV is cheap. Yes, the UI is lacking. Everything is compared to the Boxee.

Oh, and if they wanted access primarily to Netflix, I'd recommend a BluRay player, which at less than $100 also plays BluRay and DVD physical media, which can also be gotten from Netflix (in the US).

I think you are mis-reading me. I agree the sneaknet way is poor, it works but cumbersome, plus they only support limited file types/encoding schemes. The proper way is to pull it over the network, be that a file share (preferable), web server or custom app.

Jon had previously compared Netflix's selection to Vudu's, which I believe is invalid, but I was curious as to how Amazon and Vudu differ, pricing wise their equal as you say.

We don't care about local content at all.

We just upgraded to Apple TV 2 for the netflix support. My biggest complaint thus far was finding the thing in the store, as it pretty much just looks like an iPod docking station.

Ah, I did misread you and I'm sorry for that. Oops!


I hadn't really thought about it myself so it was interesting to take a look at it for my post.

I used to really love Amazon's VOD, but now I just don't use it. First of all, I can't order video from the web and send it to my Tivo. Scratch that - technically I can, and that process works really well, but it has two problems:

1) There is no way to order HD content from the website and push it to the Tivo. You have to order it directly from the Tivo. Unfortunately this eliminates the deals you get in their weekly newsletter.

2) If you do order video from Amazon's website, content to get SD video, Tivo then presents it to you in the worst possible way: non-anamorphic. When you play it back, you get black bars on the top, bottom, AND sides. You can change the aspect on the Tivo remote, but this ends up cutting something off and it looks just terrible.

So I've switched to vudu entirely and I love it. The quality is stunning, the interface is excellent, and while the prices are high, I've found that I don't mind them too much. The convenience makes up for it.

I'm back in Belize now, or I'd try it out and tell you

No more streaming video for me. In town, I'm stuck on 128k DSL and in the village I have Hughesnet with their draconian 500mb daily download limit.

Ouch! That's awful! What, do you have to disable image downloading at that point?

Yeah, you'd burn through that in about 20 minutes with Netflix streaming...

My mom used to be on Hughesnet, shared from a neighbor. It was horrible with the daily limits, as once the threshold is crossed, speed drops to near or below dialup speeds. This made it near impossible for her to download anything large. And if it was a security update day, multiple computers could easily ensure the limits was crossed. I think their plan capped at 300mb a day.

She has since switched to Wild Blue, and is much happier. Instead of a daily limit, it's a 30 day rolling window. So if a big file has to be downloaded, it can be done without crippling the connection. Overall the speeds also seem quite a bit better. It's been the first time we can reliably do a video conference call, though audio still is best over a phone due to the satellite lag.

Actually, the tier 1 plan limit is 250mb a day. We were hitting it on a daily basis and moved to the 500mb plan. They "generously" provide you with a free period between 2 and 5 AM Eastern to do updates for AV and OS.

Stick with Wild Blue. One of my buddies makes their satellite transmission hardware. They've got some good stuff coming down the pipe. I had him check and due to the more focused beams they use, it's not an option for me down here in Central America.

How is it on just voice? I'm planning to go to voip for my 4 business lines, because I hate getting ripped off by ATT, but I don't wanna have to continue to buy dsl from ATT to avoid ATT. The cable company here is even worse...

It'll still have that extra (satellite distance) 1/4 second delay, which might not be good on top of the usual voip delays.

Yep, no getting around the fact that the signal has to travel much further then it would via land or radio based methods. Both WildBlue and HughesNet use geosynchronous satellites to save on cost. They sit 22,300 miles away, compared to satellites for the iridium phones at a low 485 miles. For perspective, the earth is about 25,000 miles around at the equator. So every time a data packet is sent over the WildBlue link, it travels the distance of almost 2 trips around the entire globe. Iridium satellite phone signals travel the distance of the length of California, plus a little over half of Oregon.

Iridium NEXT will have data support, but they don't start launching until 2015.

Satellite internet providers have tricks to accelerate web browsing, where they see the initial request come in on their side, and start also requesting all the pictures, and other page contents automatically. They then send that info right behind the initial request before even receiving the request from your computer. This helps browsing normal HTTP sites, but the slowdown comes right back for any HTTPS, or AJAX type of web activities.

For everyone else: Netflix (US and Canada) on Boxee Box release Valentine's Day with a new firmware update.

This update also adds support for my IR receivers.

Sorry, clearly people don't like clicking-through I'll be sure to include more info in my posts in the future. I was just a little excited by this announcement, and it works really well.

I had already updated and came here to write the same thing, but you beat me to it.

I was just messing with you because Trevor had done the exact same thing around the same time

I could swear that a new XBMC thread was created at some point, but maybe not.

Anyway, I finally got my HTPC up and running like I want. Zero internal storage, booting via PXE and root filesystem on iSCSI. (I tried NFS root, but it seemed kinda flaky, and I already had an OpenFiler server up and running, so adding an iSCSI target was trivial.)

Anyway, I decided to install XBMC instead of Boxee this time, and I'm reasonably pleased with it. There are some issues with the library. It's clearly more oriented towards filesystem navigation, and the library acts more like a virtual filesystem than it ought to. Boxee is definitely more polished on this front. Ignoring that, the UI (of the default skin, anyway) seems no less polished than Boxee's.

This is mostly just initial reaction, though. I haven't really played with it a lot yet.

I'm going to join you guys on this thread soon, I bought an Acer Revo R3700 from eBuyer for £185 (link). Atom D525 (Dual Core 1.8GHz), 2GB RAM, 160GB, ION2, SPDIF Audio, Gigabit, 802.11n, HDMI, SD Card Slot, More USBs than you can shake a stick at... and its tiny and practically silent.

Using it for a bunch of random stuff at the moment, but the plan is to play around with Boxee / XBMC etc - but it'll probably be a month or two until I actually get around to it.