“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.]
This just might spark a bit of life into the old “hobby” project
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.
By the way… I love my AppleTV and use it all the time. Even Adult ADHD, I don’t get bored with it.
Is there a way to put my DVDs into an Apple TV format so I can watch them?
@ Mike from Fernie
In one word HandBrake!
Handbrake.
@Mike,
Yep, it’s called Handbrake – works great!
2 words actually:
Handbrake & MacTheRipper
Lynch, if you don’t want your AppleTV then sell it. I’d be willing to take it off your hands.
@Mike:
Handbrake has an Apple TV setting.
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!
http://www.boxee.tv.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Note that right now Boxee is in alpha and there is no PPC version (yet)
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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”