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Testing Boxee on Apple TV
Friday, November 14, 2008 - 02:26 PM EST

"I've become bored with my Apple TV. Bored, bored, bored. So bored that I unplugged it and just haven't bothered with it at all," Jim Lynch reports for ExtremeTech. Until recently that is...and what got me interested again? Boxee."

Lynch reports, "So how is Boxee? Well I'm not going to review it here as it's still in alpha, however after some quality time with it, I can sum it all up in word one word:
WOW."

Lynch explains, "I had the content of Hulu, CBS, Revision 3, CNN, Comedy Central, and others at my fingertips! I could even browse public torrent networks to download old movies and stuff. Neat!"

Read the full article, with screenshots, here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Judge Bork" for the heads up.]

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Nov 14, 08 - 02:31 pm Comment from: Wandering joe

This just might spark a bit of life into the old "hobby" project

Nov 14, 08 - 02:39 pm Comment from: karrde97

So let me get this straight. Boxee is great... but you're not going to talk about it. So no one has any idea what the hell you're talking about.

Thanks for the usual crap on a Friday afternoon.

Nov 14, 08 - 02:40 pm Comment from: karrde97

By the way... I love my AppleTV and use it all the time. Even Adult ADHD, I don't get bored with it.

Nov 14, 08 - 02:41 pm Comment from: Mike from Fernie

Is there a way to put my DVDs into an Apple TV format so I can watch them?

Nov 14, 08 - 02:48 pm Comment from: Demon

@ Mike from Fernie

In one word HandBrake!

Nov 14, 08 - 02:50 pm Comment from: thethirdshoe

Handbrake.

Nov 14, 08 - 02:50 pm Comment from: Sitruc

@Mike,

Yep, it's called Handbrake - works great!

Nov 14, 08 - 03:00 pm Comment from: @Demon@Mike

2 words actually:
Handbrake & MacTheRipper

Nov 14, 08 - 03:00 pm Comment from: KingMel

Lynch, if you don't want your AppleTV then sell it. I'd be willing to take it off your hands.

Nov 14, 08 - 03:02 pm Comment from: MTS

@Mike:

Handbrake has an Apple TV setting.

Nov 14, 08 - 03:02 pm Comment from: Werby

I have Boxee on my Apple TV and it rocks! The internet video access is cool, but my favorite thing is how it will play ANY media on my computer, no matter what format. No more converting avi or divx to mp4! Boxee plays it all!

Nov 14, 08 - 03:06 pm Comment from: ebster

http://www.boxee.tv.

Nov 14, 08 - 03:24 pm Comment from: Peter

I love my AppleTV...The renting of movies is great and the quality is good. I do not have satellite or cable so it serves me well. Wish there was better integration with itunes. I have multiple iphoto libraries and after you sync to one it will not change to another library. Overall a great device though.

Nov 14, 08 - 03:34 pm Comment from: TowerTone

Mike from Fernie

If you have boxee, you can use a program like 'Ripit' to save the entire file to separate folder(and drive) that can then be accessed by your Apple TV. It looks great, is very easy, but isn't free-19 bucks.

Handbrake works great, but if you are looking at multi-GBs of video, you may not want to bloat your iTunes file that much.

Also, and I am not sure about this, but I believe you can then take your hard-drive over to your friends house to watch on their network.

Nov 14, 08 - 04:12 pm Comment from: mr_matalino

Love Boxee. Can't wait until it goes beta stage then final release. Hopefully they will include a feature where you can enter a URL address and it will take all the videos from that website and stream them to the ATV!

Nov 14, 08 - 04:49 pm Comment from: HolyMackerel

People complain about the lack of content providers limiting the aTV, but I think the biggest limit is Apple themselves. Apple need only give users access to the USB port and allow 'licensed' developers to write for the device to get much better uses than merely movie, TV and podcast content.

I can imagine uses of the aTV hardware in fridges, bedrooms, kitchens, cars, as game consoles, server farms, shop displays, etc where space and set-up complexity is an issue. These areas would not eat into existing Mac sales either.

Nov 14, 08 - 06:15 pm Comment from: Glenn

Note that right now Boxee is in alpha and there is no PPC version (yet)

Nov 14, 08 - 08:08 pm Comment from: clunker

Lynch explains, "I had the content of Hulu, CBS, Revision 3, CNN, Comedy Central, and others at my fingertips!

Very good, that helps solve things on the user end.

Now how about some content? Network TV in general stinks (and they wonder where the viewers went). What good are hundreds of channels if they're all crap?

All the more reason to turn iTunes into a studio, ahem Steve. smile

Nov 15, 08 - 05:49 am Comment from: Chano

I would not bother linking to the full article. Lynch has all the journalistic skills of an incontinent 4 year old. I will take you three link clicks to learn that he has nothing to say. A lot of words, but no substance to reward you. Somebody lynch him.

Nov 15, 08 - 08:45 am Comment from: Sarasota

Is Boxee easier to use than the ATV Flash?

HolyMackeral - There are free hacks that allow the use of the USB port. ATV Flash includes it.

Nov 16, 08 - 06:11 pm Comment from: Thepumpboy

Boxee is great, shame you cant use any of the services outside of the US (I live in Australia) due to copyright laws imposed by the US TV stations, else it's just a other thing to hack with. I 'm sure it works great as it looks good, but getting the 'you cannot access this denial' screen everytime is frustrating.

Nov 16, 08 - 10:09 pm Comment from: solid

Wish I could try Boxee. Here's the message I got from them when I attempted to sign up:

"thank you for signing up for the boxee alpha.

we are sending invites to new alpha testers every Monday.
there is quite a backlog, and we are trying to grow at a controlled pace, so you may have to wait a few weeks before you receive your invite.

thanks,
- team boxee"

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