Boxee Box

arturski

arturski

arturski

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31 Aug 2011
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Whats everyones thought on the Boxee Box, I got one to play around with from work and I am of mixed thoughts.

Good Bits:
- plays anything from anywhere
- seamless connection to home network and file browsing
- nice remote and features
- the wife learned to use it quickly
- love the apps

Bad Bits:
- Tends to hang and freeze sometimes
- Could not understand how the cataloging worked to categorize series films etc

now I know the bad bits are quite short but the freezing really stood out for me, but then I am not a big lover of Dlink stuff (bad experience from work and home)

There don't seem to be any other well polished products that just work out of the box like that.

I do like XBMC but again no hardware built for it.

Please feel free to add any good or bad bits or alternatives
 
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Maybe a bad box? I've had mine more or less since launch and i wouldnt say it freezes very often.

It wasn't the best at launch but after a couple months the updates really improved it.
 
after a week of testing it has frozen on me in 2 different scenarios.

1. Left on over night goes on stand-by never comes back on - hard restart it seems to freeze up after going on standby about 70% of the time

2. Went to clear cache etc and it froze

could possibly be a bad box, it used to be a D-link display box so may be a bit worn out.
 
I think i'd certainly question them about it and definately wouldnt let it put you off.

I'm not saying mines been flawless but i can probably count on one hand the number of times its properly frozen since i bought it.
 
Had mine from launch as well. While its far from perfect its still the best media player out there right now and ive tried quite a few.

Most of the issues with the Boxee Box come from bad upgrades ive found. Its a pain to do but download the latest decent firmware onto a USB stick. Restore the Boxee to factory settings, then upgrade from the USB. Once all that is done set it up again and rescan your films.

Ive had bad upgrades a couple of times and the above fixes it.
 
I had one and recently sold it. I've replaced it with a full HTPC running XBMC Eden. Boxee was good and worked well but the interface was slow and not as customisable as I'd hoped. HTPC with XBMC is much more flexible :).
 
Thanks guys i definitely agree that its a great product and i do love it just had a couple doubts i suppose its always a bit of a trade off if you want your device to be truly universal rather than get the nice fluffy **** that apple release and get confined to a brand.

@Meatball i am definitely a fan of XBMC but i wish somebody would make good hardware thats easy and afordable as boxee. there is an option of jailbreaking appletv2 and installing xbmc but I heard that for some reason not all formats are playable on it. plus the remote makes it super convenient

I think I will have to purchase a boxee for myself :D
 
Can i suggest an acer revo? Around £200 or under but purposely built for xbmc and come with a mini wireless mouse and keyboard. Mate has had one for a while and is perfect for what your after.
 
Dava said:
yeah i use a revo for XBMC, cant fault it at all.
Click to expand...

This. I custom built an e350 based machine for xbmc and windows 7 for some light surfing and it is fantastic. If I were to do it again would be hard pressed to get anything other than a revo. Very good value for money in my opinion and much more flexible.

edit: sapphire do a nice looking little revo alternative too. Can't remember the name for the life of me but ocuk did stock it at one point.
 
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Had my boxee box for a over a year. Wouldn't bother with anything else, its awesome. Done the lot before now, dedicated media centre PC's, modded Xbox with XBMC etc, the boxee is a better solution. Its only £130 at the moment too.
 
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