Boxee Box owners...

NeilF

NeilF

NeilF

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Joined
15 Nov 2003
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What your current opinions/thoughts on it? Personally not interest in net features, mainly just indexing and playing local media off a NAS.

As regarding it building up its images/info for a film/program, does it do entirely itself, or does it have utilities that can do it?
 
deadite66 said:
i'd signup and download the PC installable version to try the interface out, personally i don't like it.
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same here, I think I have tried it 2 or 3 times but it doesn't look anywhere near as good or versatile as XMBC. It does have some Net content which XMBC doesnt, but so does my TV and BDP and I don't use it there either.
 
I wonder why they or someone else haven't done an XMBC variant?

XTreamer sort of has, but it's certainly not in the same price bracket.
 
I've got a Boxee Box, have had it for about 11 months now and to be honest i think its great.

Haven't compared it to any other products but i find it very easy to use (my 10yr old daughter picked it up and was watching a film without being shown how)

It may not be as versatile with skins and things but what it does i find it does very well
 
Marvt74 said:
I've got a Boxee Box, have had it for about 11 months now and to be honest i think its great.

Haven't compared it to any other products but i find it very easy to use (my 10yr old daughter picked it up and was watching a film without being shown how)

It may not be as versatile with skins and things but what it does i find it does very well
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Can't say I'm fussed about skins.

So as regards cover art does it sort itself out? I assume you have film/program infor displayed. Does it get this automatically too? eg: From IMDB?

Do you find browsing speeds (around your media) fast?
 
Had a boxee since launch, there were a few teething problems but nothing that didn't get sorted out with a few updates.

As for scraping, it does it entirely itself, as long as your files are named correctly it should be fine, name of film and year is usually enough.

I think it's an amazing bit of kit for the money, if you want something with the least amount of setup that just works, I don't think there is a better option out there, I've seen them go for £140 new
 
Yes, it pulls cover art itself. Every now and then theres a file that it doesnt do automatically. In this case it pulls in a screenshot from the file.

Sometimes it also gets the wrong film but you can update the details and search for the correct thing which sorts this out. When downloading films etc i suppose this can happen.

Browsing speeds are good and they are constantly updating it with new features.

If you do get one make sure you get the Navi-X repository as it allows you to stream/watch pretty much anything you've ever dreamed of!
 
I've owned one for a month now. I bought it based on the remote, iPhone app, interface and extensive list of formats it supported. The only thing that's disappointed me so far is the metadata. For movies it's usually spot on however for TV Shows its proved useless and I was forced to make NFOs which I struggled with due to Boxee's specific NFO support. For the record my TV Shows are organised in the way as recommended by Boxee forum.

The music side of boxee is limiting as well. You can only browse music based on the artist to which it also (struggles) to download an image for. I'd rather have my music displayed by album with the Album artwork but no I'm not allowed. I thought the UI would be a lot more customisable.

Overall Id recommend it buts it's by no means perfect, far from.
 
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Meatball said:
I've owned one for a month now. I bought it based on the remote, iPhone app, interface and extensive list of formats it supported. The only thing that's disappointed me so far is the metadata. For movies it's usually spot on however for TV Shows its proved useless and I was forced to make NFOs which I struggled with due to Boxee's specific NFO support. Also I'm disappointed with the music side. You can only browse music based on the artist to which it also (struggles) to download an image for. I'd rather have my music displayed by album with the Album artwork but no.

Overall Id recommend it buts it's by no means perfect, far from.
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Oh, why does it prove so painful with TV shows? Surely it just needs to be in the correct folder structures and it should take it from there?


Also, anyone comment on it browsing photos? I have all our X thousands of photos on the NAS in a nice folder structure. These can also be reduced down to 1080p (100-300k) if that helps performance.
 
I do like the fact that you can try the software first and then buying the box is optional, so no one needs to be surprised after they do so.

Maybe I needed to tinker with it a bit more, but my ASUS eee box and XBMC does all I need so I didn't much see the need to mess around with Boxee
 
I've not found it to have problems with tv shows to be honest. Not sure how Meatball has them structured but i have

Series\Season\Episode

So for example it'd be

South Part\Season 3\Episode 8

Theres the odd one like i think The OC had problems but i'm sure i was able to fix it easy enough.

Not used it for photos or music unfortunately as its nowhere near my hifi and i have a Squeezebox for that
 
Had the Boxee Box since launch. I tried quite a few media players including full media PCs. Boxee Box is the only one I have stuck with. Just plays everything I through at it and very good quality as well. Interface isnt perfect but its simple, easy to use and better looking then pretty much anything else out there.

I have mine hooked up to a Mediasonic 4 x drive bay. with 4 x 2tb drive in. Connected by USB. Everything just works, wether its 30gb blueray ISOs or 750mb avis.

Regarding scraping, it does do it itself but I use Ember Media Manager to get rename the files and generate the info files before I scan them on Boxee. It just ensures you get he correct film.

My only bugbear with it is the updates. I stopped updating it to the latest firmware a long time ago. The one im using is nearly a year old. All the newer ones seem full of bugs and introduce nasties such as jumping frames etc. Sur ethey will sort a new stable release soon but until then ill stick to my old one that actually works.

The new update to Google TV looks good though. Comes with a Plex app which looks great. Another 6 months or so and I can see myself switching to that.
 
^^ So are you suggesting the current Boxee Box isn't such a good experience. ie: "jumping frames"
 
NeilFawcett said:
^^ So are you suggesting the current Boxee Box isn't such a good experience. ie: "jumping frames"
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Not at all, all previous firmwares are available to download. The firmware updates seem to be hit and miss to be honest, they release one to fix one issue and it breaks 2 others. The testing they do before they release them seems poretty poor. Just do a factory restore to revert it to 1.0 then try a couple of firmwares. Stick with the one that works for you.

Once you get a good one, switch off auto updates and away you go. When it works, it works very well. Much better than any other media player I have tried.
 
Marvt74 said:
I've not found it to have problems with tv shows to be honest. Not sure how Meatball has them structured but i have

Series\Season\Episode

So for example it'd be

South Part\Season 3\Episode 8

Theres the odd one like i think The OC had problems but i'm sure i was able to fix it easy enough.

Not used it for photos or music unfortunately as its nowhere near my hifi and i have a Squeezebox for that
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That's how mine are organised, each episode is an individual .MKV:

Series\Season\Episode EG:

Friends\Season 10\Friends S04E11 The One With OcUK.MKV

It's struggled to pick up episode names etc.
 
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