The Boxee Box Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Ganesh T S on November 23, 2010 5:42 PM EST- Posted in
- Gadgets
- Media Streamer
- HTPC
- Boxee Box
Video Decode Quality with HQV 2.0
One of the bugs in the currently available firmware for the Boxee Box is the constant buffering and stuttering of Blu-Ray M2TS files, even over USB. Unfortunately, the HQV 2.0 benchmark we have is a set of M2TS files from a Blu-Ray ISO. I had to put up with constant interruptions in the benchmarking videos, and as such I wasn't very comfortable tabulating the results. I tried repeating playback of each stream more than 3 times each to ensure that I had a fair idea of how the playback quality turned out.
| Boxee Box : HQV 2.0 Benchmark | ||||
| Test Class | Chapter | Tests | Max. Score | Boxee Box |
| Video Conversion | Video Resolution | Dial | 5 | 0 |
| Dial with Static Pattern | 5 | 5 | ||
| Gray Bars | 5 | 5 | ||
| Violin | 5 | 5 | ||
| Film Resolution | Stadium 2:2 | 5 | 0 | |
| Stadium 3:2 | 5 | 0 | ||
| Overlay On Film | Horizontal Text Scroll | 5 | 3 | |
| Vertical Text Scroll | 5 | 5 | ||
| Cadence Response Time | Transition to 3:2 Lock | 5 | 0 | |
| Transition to 2:2 Lock | 5 | 0 | ||
| Multi-Cadence | 2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCam Video | 5 | 0 | |
| 2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video | 5 | 0 | ||
| 3:2:3:2:2 24 FPS Vari-Speed | 5 | 0 | ||
| 5:5 12 FPS Animation | 5 | 0 | ||
| 6:4 12 FPS Animation | 5 | 0 | ||
| 8:7 8 FPS Animation | 5 | 0 | ||
| Color Upsampling Errors | Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP) | 5 | 2 | |
| Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE) | 5 | 2 | ||
| Noise and Artifact Reduction | Random Noise | SailBoat | 5 | 0 |
| Flower | 5 | 0 | ||
| Sunrise | 5 | 0 | ||
| Harbour Night | 5 | 0 | ||
| Compression Artifacts | Scrolling Text | 5 | 3 | |
| Roller Coaster | 5 | 3 | ||
| Ferris Wheel | 5 | 3 | ||
| Bridge Traffic | 5 | 3 | ||
| Upscaled Compression Artifacts | Text Pattern | 5 | 3 | |
| Roller Coaster | 5 | 3 | ||
| Ferris Wheel | 5 | 3 | ||
| Bridge Traffic | 5 | 3 | ||
| Image Scaling and Enhancements | Scaling and Filtering | Luminance Frequency Bands | 5 | 2 |
| Chrominance Frequency Bands | 5 | 5 | ||
| Vanishing Text | 5 | 5 | ||
| Resolution Enhancement | Brook, Mountain, Flower, Hair, Wood | 15 | 10 | |
| Video Conversion | Contrast Enhancement | Theme Park | 5 | 0 |
| Driftwood | 5 | 0 | ||
| Beach at Dusk | 5 | 0 | ||
| White and Black Cats | 5 | 0 | ||
| Skin Tone Correction | Skin Tones | 10 | 0 | |
| Total Score | 210 | 73 | ||
The Boxee Box appears to fare a little bit better than the average WDTV type streamer even with the unreliable firmware. Do note that some of the tests simply make no sense for the Boxee Box because the knobs to activate and test out the features just don't exist (as Boxee probably doesn't want to befuddle the average user with some arcane menu options).
That said, one of the disappointing aspects revealed in the above benchmark is the complete lack of cadence detection. Hopefully, the end user doesn't want to spend too much time watching interlaced videos at non-native video refresh rates. Other than that, we wouldn't fault Boxee too much for not scoring higher in this benchmark.
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sprockkets - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
Let's just say for instance, you don't use Windows and use Boxee since you can.$50 HDD
$30 for Ram
$42 for the cpu
$80 for a decent case with a fanless 65w psu or $50 case with $30 hq Seasonic psu
$140 for a motherboard. That's right, just a CPU won't cut it, it needs a decent chipset with hardware acceleration as well, and a Zotac 9300 itx board fills that need.
Figure $20 to ship and you get $362.
You still end up having to pay more, and you are left to assemble it. You get more, but $362 isn't $200, nor will it work OOTB.
Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - link
You dont need to be fanless. There are plenty of low cost cooling options available that are "silent enough" without having to pay a premium for fanless. However, I bet an underclocked, undervolted wolfdale celeron wouldnt even need a fan at all. Especially if you use something like a Q6600 stock heatsink. But even if it needed a fan it would only need to run at 500 rpm, which is pretty much inaudible.sprockkets - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - link
That system isn't fanless, just the PSU. In either case, finding a good mini-itx case with a hq ps is next to impossible, at $50.Like you said, the fan even on a dual core 2.5 ghz processor is quite silent, but the psu one is noticeable. Still, to compare apples to apples as much as possible, I compared it with a hardware accel. chipset, and those cost more.
azcoyote - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
Any chance you could test this with PlayOn.tv, particularly the HULU stream (no subscription required)???PlayOn.TV plus Netflix is how I got free of DirecTV.
Thanks!
schreinereiner - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
I actually have a Boxee Box and have been using it in conjunction with PlayOn from day one and am very happy with it so far. Have not had bigger issues so far mainly using Hulu, Comedy Central, and Netflix (inlieu of a native app for the Boxee Box which has been announced to be ready in the next 4-5 weeks before the end of the year).AmdInside - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
10 watts on standby? That's a deal breaker for me. For a device that I would leave connected all the time, that is too much standby power draw.JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
For a person with "AMDInside" as their name, that's a little ironic isn't it? I mean, we're talking $10 per year at average power pricing to have it plugged in and running 24/7.gigahertz20 - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
Well, so much for the Boxee Box hype, I think the next media streamer I get will be the new Popcorn Hour A-210. It's the same thing as the A-200 hardware wise I think, but the case is now aluminum and fanless, which were the main drawbacks for the A-200. I have owned a A-110 for over a year now and it has played back everything.I'd love to see Anandtech do a review of both the Popcorn Hour A-210 and the new Netgear NeoTV.
Also, the last page of the review has some spelling/grammar mistakes. Below:
"But parting iwth $199 for a product with bugs"
"You can’t build an similarly capable HTPC"
schreinereiner - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
My approach right now due to the generous return window on Amazon (at least in the US) for pre-Christmas purchases is to give it until early January and re-evaluate.I went through the early Sigma players, returned a PopBox, am still fiddling with an Acer Revo Xbmc setup and have to say that with all its shortcomings the Boxee Box is the closest anyone in my eyes has gotten to marrying on- and offline content successfully while maintaining the simplicity of a set-top box. The first firmware update to address some bugs is planned for likely the end of this week. It's already being beta-tested.
spambonk - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
" so if you want to truly save power you’ll have to shut the Boxee Box down completely."Do you chose the shutdown option, or pull the plug out of the socket?