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
Intel’s CE4100 SoC
Intel first started down the path to Smart TV two years ago at IDF alongside Yahoo. The goal was to enable internet connected TVs equipped with Intel CE3100 SoCs running Yahoo powered widgets. You’d get your normal TV viewing experience but you’d be able to pull in content from the web. That partnership didn’t really go anywhere, so when Intel introduced the successor to the CE3100, aptly named the CE4100, Yahoo was nowhere to be found.
The CE4100 announcement happened a year after the CE3100 and Intel was light on partner details at the time. Several months later, Google started talking about Google TV and we knew where the CE4100 would eventually find its home.
Today the CE4100 is used in a decent number of devices, but not that many when you consider how many netbooks, notebooks and desktop PCs use Intel’s x86 silicon. The Boxee Box and all Google TV products (Logitech Revue, Sony’s Google TV box and the four Sony TVs with integrated Google TV) all run some variant of the CE4100. Intel is expecting two more CE4100 based products to ship in Europe in the near future and over the next 12 months we’ll see even more product launches.
Intel’s goal in this space is to put out a new chip every 12 months. The CE4200, announced at this year’s IDF, is the next member of the family and we’ll probably see a CE5100 at IDF 2011.
At a high level the CE4100 used in the Boxee Box pairs a 45nm Atom core (architecturally identical to what’s in Moorestown and Atom based netbooks/nettops) with a bunch of CE specific IP blocks.
There’s a dual stream 1080p video decoder that can offload H.264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4/DivX and VC-1 decoding at up to 60 fps (hardware accelerated JPEG decoding is also supported). Intel integrates a Tensilica HiFi 2 DSP that can decode everything you’d want to on a set-top box: Dolby Digital 5.1, TrueHD, DTS-HD MA, MP3, AAC and WMA9.
As some Boxee users have discovered, MJPEG isn’t supported by the video decode block. Since Atom is a general purpose x86 processor Boxee/D-Link do have the ability to decode MJPEG (or any other codecs) in software, assuming the CPU core is fast enough to handle the task.
All the I/O you need is also supported by the CE4100. There’s an integrated NAND controller for on-board solid state storage, 10/100/1000 ethernet support, 2 x 3Gbps SATA ports and 2 USB 2.0 ports. For audio and video you’ve got HDMI, SPDIF and RCA audio outputs.
Intel has an on-die security processor that handles all of the DRM and conditional access necessary to enable popular multichannel lossless audio codecs and decode protected video content.
The CE4100 GPU is the same PowerVR SGX 535 used in the MID/smartphone implementations of Atom. It runs at up to 400MHz depending on the particular CE4100 model you’re looking at.
Feeding all of the blocks on the CE4100 are two 32-bit DDR2/DDR3 memory controllers. This is 2x the memory bus width of the Atom Z600 series targeted at smartphones and made necessary due to the bandwidth demands of decoding high bitrate 1080p video.
As I mentioned above the CPU core is identical to all other 45nm Atom processors. It has a 512KB L2 cache and a 24/32KB L1 cache (I/D). The chip runs at either 1.2GHz or 1.6GHz depending on the particular SKU. Although we’ve been calling it the CE4100, there are actually four SKUs that presently make up the CE4100 family. Their names and specs are below:
| Intel CE4100 Family | ||||||
| SKU | CPU Clock | GPU Clock | A/V Capture | TDP | ||
| Intel CE4110 | 1.2GHz | 200MHz | No | < 10W | ||
| Intel CE4130 | 1.2GHz | 200MHz | Yes | < 10W | ||
| Intel CE4150 | 1.2GHz | 400MHz | Yes | < 10W | ||
| Intel CE4170 | 1.6GHz | 400MHz | Yes | > 10W | ||
It’s unclear what SKUs are used in the Boxee Box and Google TV platforms. Boxee told us there’s a 1.2GHz part inside the Box, so if I had to guess I’d peg it as the CE4110 to keep costs down.
Hyper Threading is supported by the underlying architecture but it is not enabled on the first generation of CE4100 SoCs. Next year Intel will ship a new member of the CE4100 family with HT enabled.
The CE4100 doesn’t support a number of power management features today. The platform doesn’t support Suspend to RAM (STR), which I noticed in my Boxee testing. There’s no difference in power consumption between an idle Boxee Box and one that’s put to sleep - both consume 11 - 13W of power because STR doesn’t work.
Intel plans on enabling STR next year however it’s unclear whether Boxee will be able to backport STR support with a software update or if it’ll need a hardware modification as well. If the latter is true, current Boxee users will likely be out of luck.
There’s also no clock or power gating supported on the CE4100, which manifests as higher than expected idle power consumption on the Boxee Box. The lowest I saw was 11.2W when the box was totally idle, which isn’t bad compared to a HTPC but is much worse than your typical streamer boxes. I would expect roughly half that. Without power gating all of the blocks you see in the diagram above are always using power, even when they’re not in use. They may not consume as much power as they would while active, but they are still senselessly snacking on watts.
The CE4200, announced at this year’s IDF, adds a few features onto the CE4100 that should make the next version of the Boxee Box even better should Boxee/D-Link choose to use it.
The CE4200 adds power and clock gating, which will drive idle power consumption lower. Presumably STR will also be supported in the first releases of the 4200. The CE4200 includes a CableCARD interface and a hardware video encoder that could enable some interesting usage models. Imagine a Boxee Box like device with an iPhone dock that would automatically transcode and let you take your content with you.
I asked Intel if it ever plans to offer reference designs to the general public based on the CE4100 or CE4200. While there are licensing issues involved in offering the shipping CE4100 to the general public (e.g. you need to be a DTS license holder), Intel did mention that it may begin offering reference platforms to interested customers/distributors once the Google TV source code is published next summer.
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krotchy - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - link
They must use the same electronics supplier we do at my work."Oh we decided to buy 500,000 older revision PCBs because the forecast said to, even though you already pushed all of the paperwork for the latest PCB revision and we were told not to order the old one. We will just rework them until the existing stock is gone unless you want to pay us $2,000,000 to scrap them"
justaviking - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - link
For "average Joe" consumer products, I have ask myself, "Can I picture my wife using this?"I have to say, "No." She would probably make me return it within a week. Why?
- Inconsistent behavior. Sometimes you do this, sometimes you do that, other times you do something else. Full-screen display is an example of that.
- Lock-ups.
- Bugs.
- Sort of aggregated, but not really.
- A naming convention for files on your network? I don't see that happening any time soon in my house. I might do it, just out of habit, but my wife or kids? No way.
It's a good attempt.
I appreciate the challenge Boxee is faced with, and I'd be happy to pull the plug on my cable bill too, but I don't see it happening yet.
Jackattak - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - link
Couldn't agree more. I would love to forcibly remove Comca$t out of our house, preferably kicking and screaming (mostly screaming), but this fails the wife test (and my wife is fairly tech-savvy).There has got to be a better way. This is not a consumer-ready product. This looked more like an alpha release review. Far too many bugs and far too little consistency.
Chillin1248 - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - link
From what I understand from Boxee, the reason behind the strange (and internet download full) naming strings is due to the IMDB service that identifies the movies and shows. This is completely separate from Boxee.bernstein - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - link
Quote: "You can’t build a similarly capable HTPC with better power characteristics than the Boxee Box (simply because Intel won’t sell you a CE4100)."This is just wrong... go to to www.pandaboard.org (or heck even a beagleboard) and get a beagleboard friendly build of linux/xbmc and you've definately got a more power-efficient htpc... best suited for 1080p playback...
and just how does a piece of hardware with 10w standby power have best power characteristics? heck not any notebook will consume anywhere near that power in standby...
now nough harsh words. great article, as always. a delight to read.
ganeshts - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - link
Why do you think Boxee went off from Tegra 2 to Intel CE 4100? And the Pandaboard you are talking about is OMAP4 based.. Surprise Surprise.. OMAP4 host CPU = Tegra 2 host CPU, and the power profile of both is approximately the same.. so the capabilities of both are going to be similar.. in other words, don't expect 1080p60 or any other complex encoding playback!vhawkxi - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
My sister brought me one from Canada as South Africa is again looked over as a country where people would like to have the device.I just love it, so much better than the MVIX device I had to use as media streamer up to now.
The networking works flawlessly and the 802.11 n wireless is more than sufficient to watch content in 1080p 24Hz.
Contents is currently an issue but as soon as Hulu is up and running, I will have access to the source I have been using on the software version. So I am happy with that.
The browser is still a work in progress but I assume it will eventually get there and allow nice browsing on my TV.
So overall - even at $199 which I was more than happy to pay - it is a nice product with great potential - and it has already received 2 system upgraded in the last week. Much more than one can say of similar devices that gets bug fixes once or twice a year.
Well done dudes - this may still be a winner !!
trip1ex - Monday, November 29, 2010 - link
About as expected. IT's a device that wants to give the consumer something it can't deliver - free cable tv.It's telling that the article felt it had to have the same number of pros as cons. YOu can tell this is the case when one pro says "it can only get better."
And another says, "they are pro-active at fixing bugs."
I sense some allegiance to Boxee. Maybe because they are a small company. Or because they have a personal relationship with those at the company.
In any case ....why wouldn't the folks who would tolerate bugs and problems just use a pc with their TV in the first place?
wadsworth - Monday, November 29, 2010 - link
Love it. The new Thanksgiving firmware update fixed a ton of issues I had with 720p and 1080p non-MP4 codecs. The thing played everything I threw at it, from flv to mkv. The show/movie stuff was okay, but nothing compared to the "apps" component IMO. It is up to 142 web interface apps with everything from MediaFly to YouPorn. Heck, I didn't even know Sarah Lane was doing stuff with Leo nowadays. Moving through your own files is fast/smooth, unlike my WD TV Live.saltyzip - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
Boxee has so much promise, but it doesn't deliver on the most important aspect which is speed and reliability, especially when it comes to HD content.I have evaluated the free downloadable version for the PC and posted my views on their forum, only to be flamed by the moderators for expressing my constructive criticism.
No support for blu-ray or HD streaming is a big issue in my books, but the general reliability of playing any kind of content is really a hit and miss experience.
I had crashing, videos only showing on half the screen, resolution not changing to reflect the media being played so was jerky.
Why would anyone want to put this onto a TV in the living room, it would drive my misses nuts.
It needs at least another year to get it right, but by then it will be too late.