D-Link The Boxee Box HD Streaming Media Player

***Edit***I recently ordered another Boxee Box after reading of the Thanksgiving firmware update. THIS is the Boxee Box I expected the first time! This is an excellent media streamer now. Right up front I'll tell you that I don't give a rats rosy about watching youtube videos and such on this device. I have no interest in testing the "web" features it supports. I still very much want it to support Netflix, and Hulu would be nice but really isn't a big deal to me. My main reason for wanting it is for local media streaming, and this is what Boxee Box does better than anything else I have seen. I have used the software version of Boxee, the Popcorn Hour, WDTV Live, Windows Media Center (MCE and Win 7), and Media Portal and Boxee Box is better than any of them now. In order to keep my previous review intact, I will interject my updated comments in CAPS. I know that's annoying, but it's just how it's gonna be ;)Pros:very easy setup and update processremote control with keyboard on backinterface is high defaudio over hdmiwireless n built inIT'S NOW EXTREMELY RESPONSIVE. SO FAST!THEY ALSO FIXED THE OVERSCAN SETTING. LAST TIME I HAD TO FINE TUNE THE OVERSCAN (IT WAS SET ON SOMETHING FAR TOO HIGH) BUT THIS TIME IT WAS PERFECT RIGHT OFF.Cons:constant lockups, 1+ per hour.NO MORE! HASN'T LOCKED UP ON ME ONCE IN THE THREE DAYS I'VE HAD ITfan is loud, can hear it when you are anywhere close to the unit.THIS ONE'S FAN IS QUIET, I CAN ONLY ASSUME THE LAST ONE HAD A FAULTY FANthere is no default setting for subtitles, and by default they are turned on. any time you play a file with available subtitles you have to go through a 5 step process to turn them off. the setting is not remembered so next time you try to play the file, you will have to turn off subtitles again.FIXED, THEY ADDED A GLOBAL SETTING TO FIX THIS, DEFAULT SETTING IS OFFno place to store default username and password for network shares.ADDED A WORKGROUP OPTION, IT'S NOT VERY INTUITIVE, BUT IT'S THEREno on screen indicator to show caps lock mode or number mode. it will prompt you for a password but you don't know what mode your remote is in so you have to use the on screen keyboard...defeats the purpose of having a built in remote.FIXED THIS AS WELL. IT WORKS JUST LIKE AN IPHONE NOW. AFTER YOU ENTER A CHARACTER YOU ARE GIVEN A 1 SECOND GLIMPSE OF WHAT IT IS BEFORE THE CHARACTER TURNS TO AN ASTERISK.can't play bluray isos over the network, stutters.FIXED. THIS ALONG WITH THE NEXT CON WERE A HUGE % OF WHAT UPSET ME ABOUT THE FIRST BOXEE BOX I RECEIVED. WORKS EXCELLENT NOW. TAKES ABOUT 15-20 SECONDS TO CACHE +/- 3 MINUTES OF THE ISO BEFORE IT RESPONDS AND STARTS TO PLAY, BUT THAT'S NECESSARY AND PERFECTLY FINE. IF YOU FAST FORWARD PAST THIS CACHE, IT WILL HAVE TO REFRESH THE CASH BEFORE YOU CAN FAST FORWARD ANYMORE. I DON'T SEE ANY WAY AROUND THIS. IF YOU WANT TO GO FURTHER JUST USE THE CHAPTER FUNCTION, WHICH WORKS PERFECTLY NOW. HAVE PLAYED 30+ ISOS WITH THIS NEW BOXEE BOX, HASN'T MESSED UP ONCE.can't fast forward or rewind bluray isos from local attached storage, video never catches up, only audio. even my wdtv-live can do this, and it's much less powerful. perhaps this can be fixed with a firmware update?FIXED, WORKS PERFECTLY NOW.the shape of the boxee box is neat to look at, but very difficult to fit into my entertainment setup. everything else is flat and sits below the screen of my 60" Quattron allowing me to swivel the screen at the base, not anymore thanks to boxee box's look at me!!! attention whore design.THIS, OF COURSE, HASN'T CHANGED. MY SUGGESTION TO THE BOXEE TEAM IS TO MAKE IT A MORE FRIENDLY SHAPE NEXT TIME. IF IT'S A GOOD PRODUCT, IT DOESN'T NEED TO HAVE A WONKY ENCLOSURE TO ATTRACT ATTENTION, WE'LL TELL ALL OUR FRIENDS AND IT WILL SELL ANYWAY!file transfers to attached storage are stupidly slow. we're talking 8-9mb/second. this is over a 100mbps lan connection. i tried multiple hard drives and they both performed the same.UNCHANGED. NOT A HUGE DEAL THOUGH, THAT'S WHAT MY FILE SERVER IS FOR.no netflix, hulu, etc. as everyone has already made note of, but they promise netflix before the end of the year. hulu however will supposedly not be supported in favor of hulu plus, a 10/month pay service.....bah!UNCHANGED. NETFLIX IS THE LAST PIECE OF THE PUZZLE THAT THIS NEEDS. THAT WILL MAKE IT COMPLETE. BOXEE TEAM PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE MAKE IT LIKE ON THE ROKU. MAKE THE SEARCHES ACTIVE. WHEN I TYPE "M" ON THE ROKU'S SEARCH IT STARTS BRINGING UP THINGS BEGINNING WITH "M", AND SO ON. THIS IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH THE NETFLIX SUPPORT ON THE SOFTWARE VERSION OF BOXEE.CONCLUSIONSo, to wrap up, this is an excellent device now. I am extremely pleased with it. This is what it should have been at launch. The boxee team is extremely responsive and really pay attention to their customers. The support of the boxee team is a huge reason to get this device IMO. It still has some flaws, but i have no doubt they will be addressed. I know this because the feedback on the boxee forums is met with intelligent and prompt responses by the boxee team. This is a great device now, and it's going to get even better. I whole heartedly recommend buying a Boxee Box if you are looking for a local media streamer. When I sent the first Boxee Box back, I installed Boxee on my Macbook Pro (Core 2 Duo 2.6GHz, 4GB Ram) and used it for the three weeks before I got this updated Boxee Box. I can honestly say this new Boxee Box is better and faster than the software version installed on powerful laptop. Plus, this supports Blu Ray ISO playback, which is something Apple doesn't. Boxee Box FTW!

Ok, Let me start off with saying that with all new projects/products (iphone, various operating systems, etc) they can't be expected to work 100% perfectly the ways everyone wants them on the first day. Good products take a bit of time to grow into their skin and I admire boxee and dlink for getting the product out so the makers could really hear the problems and things people want, then updates can be made to take care of these things. Boxee Box v1 is an amazing start.-------My experience:I've owned two hacked western digital live plus (WDTVLIVE+) for a while now and I had them both hacked to run wdlxtv (amazing software from brad that really made the device truely remarkable and customizable). I enjoyed being able to telnet into them over my local network and make changes as well as providing high quality msheets and artwork when selecting the movies or tv shows. This process was VERY time consuming. With hundreds of mkv movies in a collection, making all the msheets became a pain that I didn't have time for. The wdtvlive+ is great device and I'm glad so much additional development has gone into it.I owned an apple tv before that which I had boxee installed on. Great software then.The Boxee Box:Its bigger that the wdtvlive+ but its cool looking and its a welcome addition to my entrainment center, it looks good. I have no problems with sound or overheating yet so I'm happy about that. Setup was quick and easy. It connected to the network on the first try and updated itself and rebooted. No problems here. I'm quite happy with the boxee GUI, it looks very impressive on my massive tv. OOOO AHHHH, especially with hundreds of my HD movies to select from. The remote is the perfect size and keyboard is plenty big for me. I like it more than wdtvlive+ remote for sure. Once the webserver was activated in the settings, I was easily able to drag and drop files from my mac onto the locally attached hard drives connected to the boxee box (yes read/write over the network which seemed to a be a problem for some other people, I have no idea what they are talking about, I have full read/write from snow leopard as well as windows 7, it worked for me without any addtional steps). The box easy connected to all the shares on my network (both osx and win7 computers, all shares are there and work fine). As far as playback, I have yet to find a movie in my collection that hasn't played, they all have worked.My problems/things dlink/boxee need to work on:1) The artwork process is very slow, wish there was a faster automated process for collection movie/tv show artwork. Come on people, its 2010, I should be able to load artwork for hundred of movies and tv shows in under 10 minutes. Get this fixed, I will be happier.2) I have a very reliable internet connection at home and haven't had any problems for months. The couple days I've had the boxee box installed on my network...my internet seems to be dropping a couple times a day for some reason. I cannot tell if its the boxee box causes internet problems or its my isp and just a coincident. who knows but if anyone else has this problem let me know. Maybe we can put our heads together and figure this out.As for the wdtvlive, I plan on putting a wdtvlive+ in one bedroom and the other wdtvlive+ in another bedroom. The boxee will stay in my living room/entertainment center where I watch a majority of my movies and tv shows.To sum up: for all those people having problems, you cannot expect everything to work out of the box (which it did for me for some reason) because everyone has different types of network and setups that may cause various problems, its not as easy as you think. If you have problems, then work as a group to get it resolved or hacked to your liking or make it known to boxee. Don't just rant and be an idiot, the boxee box is a good VERSION 1 product that I'm happy with even though it needs a few tweeks...(quickly please dlink/boxee, people are threatening to return their box).KEEP IN MIND: I only use the boxee box for LOCAL PLAYBACK OF FILES. I don't care about netflix or any of that online streaming crap. LOCAL ONLY USER!Don't worry, I'm not returning the box, I like it, but here are my comments thus far:1) I like the boxee box more than my two WDTVLIVE+'s. So well done on that.2) MY MAIN PROBLEM: I need the boxee box to monitor local folders constantly. If I add a movie to a folder, I would like the artwork to appear in movies or shows within 5/10 minutes on the HOME SCREEN.3) One reason I wanted the boxee box was to install the ESPN3 app for football, I cannot get this app to load games, its just black.4) It has played every video file I've thrown at it which is amazing because I have a lot.5) No read/write networking problems YET, everything is accessible. I'm happy I'm not having the same issues other people seem to be having with network sharing.6) I was worried about reliability, so I attached a 2TB hdd to the boxee box and started a 1TB transfer over the network to that local bb hdd. It transferred all 1TB without restarting or crashing.Well done.7) I use this device MAINLY for local playback of files WITH the hope of ESPN3 support. I really don't care about all the online streaming crap. SO I was hoping for options allowing the device more orientated toward users that use it for local. FOR EXAMPLE, the main screen linking to local files not online content. Online content should be AN ADDON accessible within other menu's. LOCAL USERS WANT THE BOXEE centered around local files. I don't like having to go search the menus for my list of local content8) subtitles should be OFF by default, I hate having to switch them off every time I start a movie.9) Filtering by Movie Genre.10) PROBLEM: Playlists for music!!!!!!!! DUH!!!

Great system to stream your video catalogue from your computer on and it has netflix. Not much more to say. Don't bother upgrading the software, the one it comes with in the box is just fine.

Works half the time. Won't shut down, repositories and apps randomly vanish. The last updated really screwed it up, save your money.

I love my Boxee, great purchase. I have has this for over a year now and I love it! I stream all my media from my external hard drives and this little device plays every file format I throw at it. It even plays 1080p with no lag or issues. Boxee is the best media player hands down.My only complaint is the lack of playlist or playing multiple files one after the other. You have to manually start each video file one after the other.

Pros:- For what it is (a budget streaming platform?), it does the job really well.- Perfect if you have your own file server.- Easy connections: HDMI, optical audio, etc.Cons:- You cannot have more than one in the same house because the remotes control affects all Boxees within range.- A bit laggy and slow at times, especially booting up and rendering long lists.- No updates for a very long time.- Not close to the latest XBMC development going on.

Before buying the boxee box, we were assured we would be able to watch certain shows. Even using boxee hacks, we are unable to do so. We have found Netflix is the only app we use. We can watch Netflix on devices we already had.