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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chickamauga - Thursday, September 16, 2010 - link
Actually they can't. The claim on their website are just false (just do a google, it's a request on the WD TV wish list for years). Same for PCH, no can do.Neither Realtek or Sigma chipsets can do true ASS/SSA
taltamir - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
it sounds nice... but why is the form factor so hideous? how do you place this in your living room? it needs to be a normal rectangular box, not this weird abstract sculpture they haveteohhanhui - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
Perhaps we could learn to appreciate art.Saosin - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
Does it have AFP support?boschMAN - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
Anand, will the Boxee Box support external USB DVB-T digital tv tuners?racerx_is_alive - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
I heard a while back that they were intending to sell the remote separately for people who had built HTPCs. Do you know if that's still the case?teohhanhui - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
http://blog.boxee.tv/2010/09/13/pre-order-a-boxee-...rays4 - Tuesday, September 28, 2010 - link
Will Boxee box also serve as NAS, and the Drives attached to the Boxee box via USB show up on home network? Any ideas on thatWolfpup - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - link
So is this about the hard wired video decode abilities of Tegra 2? Because shouldn't dual core 1GHz A9s be considerably more powerful than a single core 1.2GHz Atom?If it's a GPU issue, then...well, then why the heck aren't more devices using Atom, as that's pathetic...
BoxeeWhatNow? - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
Apologies to the cognoscenti...These two sentences, please to explain to me please:
We have been given to understand that the security processor is not disabled in the Boxee Box.
No support for playback of DRM content from external Blu-Ray or DVD drives as of now.
Er, so if I have an external USB drive, or network share that holds, backups, I would not be able to stream that content via the BoxeeBox?
Device-wise, I must be mistaken. I can't plug the DVD-drive/player into the BoxeeBox to pass thru the signal? I guess an HDMI splitter is called for. Given that these chips can handle the encoding, I wasn't planning on getting an AV receiver...(the speakers are all self-powered and wireless: Aperion)