It’s like someone took a perfect cube and cut off one of the corners for fun. The Boxee Box is definitely a unique looking gadget, a centerpiece of the home entertainment system, and the makers, D-link, obviously want it that way.
The Boxee Shape
The shape of the Boxee eliminates the possibility of stacking any other gadget on top of it.
It’s a statement, that’s for sure. Maybe it’s D-link’s way of saying that you no longer need multiple gadgets connected to your TV.
Other than the unique shape, the Boxee sports a black gloss outer-shell, with no logo in sight–until you turn the Boxee on. When the Boxee is powered on, the gadget’s signature fluorescent green logo appears.
The Boxee feels more like a mini computer, rather than a self contained media centre, like the Apple TV.
The Boxee does make a little noise, which is only noticeable in a quiet room.
Connecting up your Boxee
What sets the Boxee Box apart from other media centres it’s vast array of connection options. While other device keep it simple–take the Apple TV for instance, which has a HDMI port and Optical Audio port–the Boxee has a port for just about every application. Here is a list of what’s on the back:
- 2 USB Ports
- HDMI Port
- Ethernet Port
- Analog Audio Ports
- Optical Audio Port
The Boxee also comes with an SD card slot, which is also really handy!
Controlling your Boxee
The Boxee remote is weird. On one side, it is simple, with only a handful of buttons. The shape of the remote, the hard to see logo and the uniformity of the buttons means that it is really easy to accidentally hold the remote the wrong way and press the wrong buttons. On the other side of the remote, there is a full keyboard, which for my fat fingers, is pretty useless. After close to a year of use, I still struggle with the remote.
There is a solution though! D-link provides a free Boxee remote app for iOS, making the whole interactive experience a lot easier.
Using Boxee Apps
The Boxee box does what people have been waiting the Apple TV to do for years–apps–and they work pretty well. There are a range of apps with varying amounts of function and gloss. Overall, I love this feature of the Boxee. I use the TWiT App to watch the latest TWiT podcasts, as well as the TED talks app. I have also used NetFlix (through US Video) but found the experience to be a lot more clunky than the Apple TV.
Streaming Movies
Streaming movies from your local server/computer is extremely easy with the Boxee. Setup multiple folders that the Boxee constantly scans for new content. As well as that, the Boxee will also find posters for all your movies and TV shows which makes the whole process of picking what to watch fun and painless!
The best thing about the Boxee is it’s compatibility with a huge range of file formats.
Say goodbye to encoding videos after you download them, the Boxee Box has played everything that I have ever thrown at it, including full HD files.
Here is what video formats the Boxee supports:
Adobe Flash 10.1, FLV/On2 VP6 (FLV/FV4/M4V), H.264 AVC (TS/AVI/MKV/MOV/M2TS/MP4), VC-1 (TS/AVI/MKV/WMV), MPEG-1 (DAT/MPG/MPEG), MPEG-2 (MPG/MPEG/VOB/TS/TP/ISO/IFO), MPEG-4 (MP4/AVI/MOV), DivX 3/4/5/6 (AVI/MKV), Xvid (AVI/MKV), WMV9 (WMV/ASF/DVR-MS)
Although there are options to pay for movie rentals, I haven’t explored this feature. Mainly because I don’t use it myself. If you want to pay for all your content within a media centre experience, I would recommend the Apple TV
Buy a Boxee Box in Australia
You can pick up a new Boxee Box for around $250 in Australia.
The Boxee Box is a little bit more expensive than other media centres on the market, but there are some things to consider. Devices like the Apple TV keep their price to a minimum by reducing the gadget’s functions.
The Boxee has a decent amount of ports and is the ultimate device for user flexibility
D-link gives you a HDMI cable in the box, which competitors rarely included in the box.
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