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CES 2011: Boxee for iPad Previewed

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Apr 12, 2001
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Boxee, the start-up company that develops media center software for multiple platforms, provided a sneak peek at its upcoming iPad app at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show this week. The iPad app will allow users to view videos on the go and send content to a Boxee device. Also, it allows users to stream a video directly from their Mac or PC in a variety of formats including those that aren't natively supported on the iPad. It accomplishes this through Boxee media server software running on the computer that automatically transcodes video to the iPad.

Boxee's CEO and co-founder, Avner Ronen, describes the app in the company's blog:
[The Boxee iPad app] enables you to access videos from your Watch Later list as well as from your Feed (stuff shared from Facebook / Twitter), and staying true to Boxee roots also enables you to stream videos directly to the iPad from your PC/Mac (without requiring you to sync).
Click to expand...

Cult of Mac recorded a demo of an early version of the app in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AVkVI-H0N4

Boxee's first foray into the App Store was in early 2009 when the company released a remote control app [App Store] for the iPhone and iPod touch that can control the Boxee application on a computer via Wi-Fi.

A release date for the iPad app has not yet been announced though the company hopes to release it by the spring. The App will be free, and Boxee reports on its blog that the company will be exploring an iPhone and iPod touch version in the future.

Article Link: CES 2011: Boxee for iPad Previewed
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/01/07/ces-2011-boxee-for-ipad-previewed/
Gizmotoy

Gizmotoy

macrumors 65816
Nov 6, 2003
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MacRumors said:
The iPad app will allow users to view videos on the go and send content to a Boxee device.
Click to expand...

Sounds like AirPlay for Boxee. Pretty interesting. My Boxee Box has been great, and this seems like it would be a useful addition. Unfortunately, I don't have an iPad. I wonder if an iPhone/iPod version is in the works.

Edit: Avner said an iPhone/iPod version will be worked on after the iPad version is complete.
 
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Richdmoore

Richdmoore

macrumors 68000
Jul 24, 2007
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Troutdale, OR
I have a boxee box, so far boxee has way over promised and under delivered. The boxee box software was nothing like the mac app "beta."

I wish them luck, but am taking a wait and see approach until they get the boxee box working first.
 
L

levitynyc

macrumors 65816
Aug 19, 2006
1,123
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The Slingbox is better than Boxee. Bought it for Christmas. Best purchase I've made since the iPhone 4
 
swarmster

swarmster

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Jun 1, 2004
641
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So with the talk of server apps, I'm guessing there's no NAS/DLNA support? Why does everyone assume I leave my desktop on all day with server programs running?
 
arn

arn

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swarmster said:
So with the talk of server apps, I'm guessing there's no NAS/DLNA support? Why does everyone assume I leave my desktop on all day with server programs running?
Click to expand...

The issue is that the iPad won't play AVI or whatever natively, so it has to be transcoded into h.264. The server app does that on the fly.

arn
 
Gizmotoy

Gizmotoy

macrumors 65816
Nov 6, 2003
1,108
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swarmster said:
So with the talk of server apps, I'm guessing there's no NAS/DLNA support? Why does everyone assume I leave my desktop on all day with server programs running?
Click to expand...

In the comments on the Boxee blog Avner said that video streams need to be transcoded in order to play in the iPad's native video player. That's why it requires a PC/Mac running the Boxee software... so it can perform that transcoding.
 
T

TeeJayEm

macrumors regular
Mar 28, 2008
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slicecom said:
I don't think Apple allows 3rd party apps to do this, do they?
Click to expand...

You can't use AirPlay directly (without a hack similar to this) but i believe the video player api's in the sdk allow you to stream via airplay indirectly.
 
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swarmster

swarmster

macrumors 6502a
Jun 1, 2004
641
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arn said:
The issue is that the iPad won't play AVI or whatever natively, so it has to be transcoded into h.264. The server app does that on the fly.

arn
Click to expand...

Gimzotoy said:
In the comments on the Boxee blog Avner said that video streams need to be transcoded in order to play in the iPad's native video player. That's why it requires a PC/Mac running the Boxee software... so it can perform that transcoding.
Click to expand...

Understood, but H.264 isn't exactly an uncommon format to rip media into these days. (My library is fully supported by the iDevices, for example.) There are tons of apps that claim to serve video from your desktop and do transcoding, but extremely few, if any, that are simply able to access fully-supported media that already exists openly on your network. It's frustrating.


Edit, to clarify that this isn't completely off-topic: It's especially frustrating in cases like this, where Boxee software has always had really good NAS support, which got my hopes up before reading that this is just another "me too" desktop streaming app.
 
edcrosay

edcrosay

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Oct 27, 2005
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Just in case anyone didn't know, Plex has been doing this since September and is now built into LG's line of new TVs.
I much prefer it to Boxee as it is Mac centric and doesnt include all of the needless social integration.

http://www.plexapp.com
 
H

HDoug

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Jan 7, 2011
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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148a)

Is this different from the app Air Video which will stream any video on your Mac to your iOS device via wi-fi or 3G? That also transcodes on the fly. Or maybe they just bought the code?
 
D

drewyboy

macrumors 65816
Jan 27, 2005
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edcrosay said:
Just in case anyone didn't know, Plex has been doing this since September and is now built into LG's line of new TVs.
I much prefer it to Boxee as it is Mac centric and doesnt include all of the needless social integration.

http://www.plexapp.com
Click to expand...

Amen! I've been loving plex since the .7 days. Been streaming content from my Plex box to my iphone 4 since day 1 of .9. I love that it starts up just as fast as netflix. And for those who don't know, it transcodes on the fly to iphones and ipads.
 
Tilpots

Tilpots

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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Like others have said, why no Plex love on the MR homepage? They've been doing this for awhile now.
 
M

MoncoZero

macrumors member
Jun 26, 2007
59
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tv land
edcrosay said:
Just in case anyone didn't know, Plex has been doing this since September and is now built into LG's line of new TVs.
I much prefer it to Boxee as it is Mac centric and doesnt include all of the needless social integration.

http://www.plexapp.com
Click to expand...

Yea Plex rules.

Watching a show with my roommate using plex. He doesn't want to pause it while I go to the bathroom.

Using the plex iphone app, I can select the same show on my iphone and "resume" the program right from the place that my roommate was watching - no fast forwarding required.
 
A

apdg

macrumors member
Mar 3, 2010
33
13
Indeed. Plex has been doing this for a while, and beautifully. I think Plex deserves way more attention than they get.
 
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