Going Cable Free - Boxee Box Opinions Needed

[Draegan]

My wife watches all the silly Housewives programming which is apparently on Netflix, and that satisfies her.  The only thing she watches that isn't there is all the random HDTV programs she watches but she says she won't miss that.

Now that my apartment complex is going to raise my rent by $120 this year, not having cable is going to be a good thing.

[MuffinMan]

L

Unfortunately only season 1 of Louie.

That's all there is. The first episode of season 2 just aired a couple days ago.

[Sky]

I'm used to Hulu - if it's carrying a current show you get it that day or the next.

[MuffinMan]

Ah, thought you were thinking that there were multiple seasons, my bad. Netflix does that sometimes but only with certain shows.

[Yegolev]

But Louie will convince her.

http://vod.fxnetworks.com/watch/louie/975075902001

[MuffinMan]

So this thread started getting me thinking about Boxee again so I picked one up last night, Draegan. The main thing that kept me from going this route before was that I didn't know you could connect a USB drive to it, which you can. My Xbox handled the media streaming before but it always struggled with pausing/rewinding and it was bothersome to make sure my PC was on to stream from. Boxee with a 1.5TB external drive solves this.

It comes with Vudu for movie rentals and they gave me a $5.99 credit. Watched Adjustment Bureau in 1080p without a single hitch, twas wonderful.

The only thing this leaves me wondering is what is the benefit of Boxee Box over a PS3.

[Yegolev]

I haven't tried streaming movies from my PC via PS3 but it works fine for music.  I do use the PS3 for Netflix, though.  Not Hulu+ since I can always jack a laptop into the TV and watch Archer like that.  I forget if you can get Vudu via PS3 but there are movies in the PSN for rent or purchase, SD and HD.

[fuser]

I'm skeptical that it could handle really high bit-rate Blu-Ray rips, but that's probably not a big concern for the majority of people.

Grabbed a friends, its playing the following with no issues at all via SMB

Duration                         : 1h 56mn
Bit rate                         : 9 133 Kbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps

[Draegan]

Ordered the Boxee Box from amazon yesterday afternoon, and it's now sitting on my desk at work.   

Can't wait to get home tonight.

[fuser]

Ordered the Boxee Box from amazon yesterday afternoon, and it's now sitting on my desk at work.  

I should take a picture of all the devices I have hooked up to the TV testing different media players

Apple TV (2gen, rooted with XBMC/Plex)
Asus Revo R1600 (Atom 230, 3GB, Nvidia ION, XBMC 10.1)
Boxee Box
PS3
Xbox 360

Enjoy your Boxee, so far it's hands down the best one for me.

[Draegan]

I was kinda surprised at how small the box was.

[Evil Elvis]

I'm skeptical that it could handle really high bit-rate Blu-Ray rips, but that's probably not a big concern for the majority of people.

Grabbed a friends, its playing the following with no issues at all via SMB

Duration                         : 1h 56mn
Bit rate                         : 9 133 Kbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps

Cool, but that's not really a high bitrate rip.  In fact, it's a little on the low side. 

If the CPU supports x264 and VC-1 acceleration, then I'll trust that it could handle anything it needs to.

[Draegan]

So I loaded NetFlix up on this bad boy... and it doesn't work.

It just hangs at about 1/4 the retrieval bar.  Great!

Edit: Then again, its not working on my PS3 either.

[Sky]

Netflix hung on me last night a couple times. I just reloaded the page and it worked. Maybe they were having network issues.

[Draegan]

Netfix works on my PS3 and not the Boxee.

Boxee's going back.  I don't see how anyone likes this thing.  The user interface is nice though.

[MuffinMan]

Hmm I'm having the opposite experience, the only thing that's disappointed me is not being able to Bittorrent directly from it. The Netflix app looks like crap but I haven't had any issues with it or the Box in general.

[Sand]

So how does that prove your point?  I think it actually proves the opposite of your point.  The Green Hornet was released on DVD on May 3, 2011.  That's pretty goddamned new unless you're posting from two months into the future.

I don't mean to nitpick.  I just hate hyperbole.

No offense taken. It proves my point because its one semi-okay comic movie out of a metric fuckton of movies that have come out in the mean time. None of which are being carried on Netflix. And most of which are lost among the pile of "New Releases" they list which arent new releases at all, they are 2002 movies which they finally managed to get their hands on and offer.
YMMV.

Not cancelling them, but neither am I all happy about them.

[MuffinMan]

So how does that prove your point?  I think it actually proves the opposite of your point.  The Green Hornet was released on DVD on May 3, 2011.  That's pretty goddamned new unless you're posting from two months into the future.

I don't mean to nitpick.  I just hate hyperbole.

No offense taken. It proves my point because its one semi-okay comic movie out of a metric fuckton of movies that have come out in the mean time. None of which are being carried on Netflix. And most of which are lost among the pile of "New Releases" they list which arent new releases at all, they are 2002 movies which they finally managed to get their hands on and offer.
YMMV.

Not cancelling them, but neither am I all happy about them.

Your reading skills are suspect.

[fuser]

Hmm I'm having the opposite experience, the only thing that's disappointed me is not being able to Bittorrent directly from it. The Netflix app looks like crap but I haven't had any issues with it or the Box in general.

Sorry to hear about the issues Draegan. Like MuffinMan, I find the Netflix app pretty dated, it's pretty slow to seek and requires re buffering on movement. It works fine once you choose content to watch. The Apple TV has the best Netflix app hands down. It has the full dynamic categories access and scrolls quite smooth alas there's way to many other issues with the device.

[Chimpy]

The Netflix app on my Samsung Blu-Ray player works pretty well. The only problem is the speed at which it pulls down thumbnail images but that could have as much to do with my being on a 5meg DSL connection and not a snappier cable one.

[Draegan]

Using the Netflix app on my PS3 seems to be just fine imo.  Just sometimes it can't access Netflix.  Happened to me twice already. 

Going back to just using the PS3 and it's shit UI.

[Chimpy]

The issue is most likely Netflix and their servers (or your ISP's links to them as the whole Level3 CDN thing has pissed off a lot of other providers).

They should have gone Akamai for their CDN instead of Level3. Sure, L3 has the pipes to push a lot of data, but they are noobs in the business of serving data.

[Viin]

I believe Sony pipes everything through their service, which is a total piece of crap.

If you use Netflix through XBox it very smooth. Sony's crap? Not so much.

I installed Boxee on my computer (you can do that, you don't have to buy the box to try it out) and it seems nice though I agree the Netflix app is rough on the edges. If I didn't have my xbox hooked up I might want it just for that ...

[stu]

Why is the Boxee so much more expensive than a Roku?

[Sand]

Netflix prices going up ^.

Customers can kiss goodbye the service's $9.99 monthly unlimited DVD-rental and streaming combination plan. Netflix will now separate DVD and streaming services into two separate plans, each priced at $7.99. A combo plan will still be available, but at an increased rate of $15.98 a month.

There will also be a standalone DVD rental plan that lets the user check out two discs at a time for $11.99 per month. The $7.99 DVD rental plan will let users check out one title at a time.

Existing users will have until September 1 to select a new plan. You can also change your plan now by visiting your Netflix account and retooling your subscription settings.

[Merusk]

Damn, I knew it was too good to last. Now to decide if I'd rather have the DVDs or the streaming.  I'm not stretching the budget to cover both.

[Strazos]

Yup, saw that coming a mile away. Now, I'll simply need to be more prompt with my DVDs to make sure I get proper use of the plan.

Even at $15/month, it's still worth it.

[CaptainNapkin]

Will they still charge another buck or tow for the Blu-Ray option?

Either way, I agree that the new price is still a great deal. Netflix stream plus disc was enough for me to dump cable completely. And the service is so good I feel like I've been ripping them off paying only 12 bucks a month or whatever I pay now. They picked a good price point in my opinion, cheap enough for a lot of folks to continue with both services, but then you never know.

[Selby]

Even at $15/month, it's still worth it.

As annoyed as I am at the price increase, I agree.  I can blow through 5-6 discs a month and 8-9 streaming content movies in the same time.  That's a LOT cheaper than going to Blockbuster...

[Hawkbit]

I'm thinking that with this change, we'll keep Netflix for the time being, but when we make our big move to Seattle, we'll likely dump cable TV and go Roku or something.  We'll see, but I'm tired of the cost to have a bunch of channels I don't want.

[MuffinMan]

I've been on the streaming only option and didn't think an extra $2 was worth it for DVD's so an extra $8 is really not worth it for me.

[Hawkbit]

The only thing I get discs for is for the odd class that needs a movie to be watched.  This semester I have to watch Crash for a report, and its easier to get the disc from Netflix than hunt down some shitty copy from the library. 

[Selby]

I watch a lot of older movies that aren't streamed, so I tend to enjoy the discs more than the streaming content.

[Merusk]

I've been on the streaming only option and didn't think an extra $2 was worth it for DVD's so an extra $8 is really not worth it for me.

I watch a lot of older movies that aren't streamed, so I tend to enjoy the discs more than the streaming content.

Both of these are part of why I'm  not stretching the budget.  The movies I watch are all old and on disk, so I don't see the value in streaming.

Plus, I've got a very firm budget and a nice chunk going to savings every month.  Based on prior experience "it's only $x" is a trap that leads me to nickle and diming myself out of that savings and into a hole. A hole that took a hell of a lot of time to crawl out of and was a scary place to bee when my job disappeared in 2009.  It takes a lot for me to agree to a cost increase on anything these days instead of just saying, "It's a luxury and I'd like to retire before I'm 70. Fuck it."  YMWV.

[Sky]

As annoyed as I am at the price increase, I agree.  I can blow through 5-6 discs a month and 8-9 streaming content movies in the same time.  That's a LOT cheaper than going to Blockbuster...

Not as cheap as getting them from the library.