Boxee Box: The Inside Story, Swapping Tegra 2 for Intel CE4100
by Ganesh T S & Brian Klug on September 13, 2010 10:31 AM EST- Posted in
- Media Streamer
- Home Theater
- HTPC
Now that we have an understanding of the new platform which will be powering the Boxee Box, it can be said that it wouldn't be unfair to expect as close an experience on this to what one gets with a HTPC version of Boxee. That said, we did have some queries for Boxee, and they were kind enough to get back to us with answers. Based on our interaction, the pros and cons of the Boxee Box as it stands now are as below:
Pros:
- Bitstreams HD audio from MKV, M2TS and ISO containers
- uPnP support (DLNA certification will be a technicality)
- DVD and Blu-Ray ISO support without menus
- 3D playback of content which can be transferred through HDMI 1.3
- Multichannel FLAC supported
- Gapless audio playback supported
- PGS and forced subtitles in MKV supported
- Support for SSA / ASS subtitles (first for a dedicated media streamer as far as we know)
Cons:
- Premium content partners not announced yet
- Only SMB and AFS (HFS+) supported for network storage as of now (No NFS / FTP etc.)
- No menu support for DVD and Blu-Ray ISOs as of now.
- HDMI 1.4a support not possible
- No support for MKV chapters as of now
- No support for playback of DRM content from external Blu-Ray or DVD drives as of now.
Some aspects on which we are awaiting further clarification:
- Support for native resolution / frame rate
- Support for 23.976 Hz refresh rate
- Extent of hackability of firmware for open source developers
- Nature of the 802.11n support
- Power consumption profile
-
Support for Real Media
From the demo that we were able to see, most of the generic online content is easily accessible, and the WebKit browser is always a fallback option. As the firmware matures further, most of the above cons should disappear. We should get a good look at the capabilities and test out Boxee's claims for ourselves once we receive the review unit. Boxee also went the extra step and requested a copy of our media streamer test suite. This should help them fix up any minor corner case requirements with respect to video decode. As for the other details, we will have to wait for the unit to reach our hands.
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ganeshts - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
mataichi, What you are referring to is the SSA subtitle reproduction capability. It is part of our media streamer test suite, and Boxee has their hands on the test stream. I think they will make every effort to ensure that the subtitles display as intended by the subtitler.That said, do wait for a review of the unit from our side. We will confirm this for you, so that you can make an informed decision on the purchase.
conejo99 - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
I see where it says this supports ISO, but how about VIDEO_TS folders (IFOs, VOBs etc.)?ganeshts - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
This is part of our test suite, and Boxee has it to make sure it is able to score as much as possible on it. I have no reason to believe that it won't be supported, but you will have to wait for the final review to confirm this.gigahertz20 - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
Thank god they dropped Tegra 2, everybody would have just dismissed the Boxee Box if it came out and couldn't handle high bit-rate HD video. Why buy a Boxee Box that can't handle true HD video when you can buy a WD TV Live for $65 off eBay that can handle almost everything? Now that it has the CE4100, the Boxee Box has become interesting again.Uzan - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
Surely when talking about network filesystems you mean AFS rather than HFS+?HFS+ is to AFP what NTFS is to SMB
ganeshts - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
Uzan, that wasn't about network file system alone. Sorry if that was the meaning which came across. What we wanted to convey was that Apple based file systems are supported on external USB drives also.icrf - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
I'm honestly much more interested in the hackability of the thing. I run both, but I'm a much bigger fan of XBMC than Boxee, as I have more often stream LAN content than from the internet and the UI is nicer for that IMO. They had previously said they were sending all their changes related to the hardware back upstream to XBMC and the box was supposed to be friendly to people that wanted to make a change to that, or anything else, really. I hope that spirit stays alive. If XBMC can run, due to the relative simplicity of an x86 core, but does have access to the decode hardware, I'll be a very sad panda.Any idea as to when they'll be able to send you a review sample? I assume the hardware is solid enough already, but they're spending time tweaking the software and don't want to send out too early and have reviews full of known problems (hence, you sending your test suite).
But, even that said, I'll probably pre-order anyway. I'd wait for a review of the Tegra-2 version, but this I think I could just buy. I have more faith in x86 than ARM for a media player. If the above issues are handled, I'll evangelize the hell out of the platform.
haze4peace - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
gigE port just isn't needed on this device. 100Mbps can stream your most demanding videos with plenty of headroom to spare. Also I'm sure you mean eSATA, which would be nice, but USB2.0 also has plenty of bandwidth to stream a high quality movie. So these are really non-issues, unless you have an external drive that only does eSATA.mindbomb - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
Not a first.the western digital line of media streamers can do this.
ganeshts - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
Do you mean to say that special fonts / karaoke effects are supported in the WDTV Live? The last time I checked, it wasn't the case... I should probably recheck if you can confirm for sure :)