Boxee Box worth the extra $100?

[DJinTX]

Still apple with never approve an app that allows storage and can play all formats like Perian. Heck I'd pay $30 for a pertain app on the new ATV via an app store.

All I am pointing out is that many people in the industry are reporting that it looks more likely than ever that Apple is planning to add ATV apps and an associated app store, which would be a great development. Of course Apple won't approve all app submissions, if they did it would kill the iTunes store.

Also, I am not saying that this purported app store makes the ATV better than Boxee. Neither product is out yet, and so we don't know what the final specs will be at launch, much less 1-2 years down the road. Anything is possible.

Both have their strengths and weaknesses, and I am excited about both.

 

[roidy]

This discussion has been beaten to death, but I have to say your claim is patently absurd. 1080p on anything less than a 42 inch TV is wasted for the most part. More importantly, unless you have taken the time to encode the same videos in both reolutions and done an apples to apples comparison, then the veracity of your statement is suspect. No offense intended...whatever works for you is great, but throwing the idiot label out there and backing it up with anecdotal observations is deserving of a reply.

That said the Boxee box is worth the extra money if 1080p is important to you. For me, it's more important to have the iTunes environment seamlessly extended throughout the house.

No, you're patently absurd if you think people can't tell the difference between 1080p and 720p. Just because you don't think theres a difference doesn't make it so. I have converted most of my Blu-rays to Apple 720p format for my AppleTV so I have done quite a few comparisons between both versions and 1080p always looks sharper and more detailed than 720p.

 

[Mach1.8]

No, you're patently absurd if you think people can't tell the difference between 1080p and 720p. Just because you don't think theres a difference doesn't make it so. I have converted most of my Blu-rays to Apple 720p format for my AppleTV so I have done quite a few comparisons between both versions and 1080p always looks sharper and more detailed than 720p.

So, you're comparing your ATV rip to the original Blu-Ray? Not even close, homie. Comb this forum, dude...that is NOT a fair comparison and the difference in quality will have little or nothing to do with resolution. The difference, instead, is due to the bit rates for the source. ATV rips are less than half the bit rate of a full up Blu-Ray. This is not speculation, it is fact...and therein lies the difference in our stances.

 

[roidy]

Ok then lets take bitrates and encoding completely out of the equation.

Do the following, this is something anybody can do to see the difference for themselves.

1. Take a full 1080p screen capture from a Blu-ray and save it in any uncompressed format.
2. Open a copy of the capture in a image program like photoshop or gimp.
3. Resize the image from 1920x1080 to 1280x720.
4. Now resize it back up from 1280x720 to 1920x1080 so that it remains the same physical size as the original.
5. Now compare both images on your HDTV and tell me you can't see a difference and one hasn't lost detail.

Infact this site has done exactly that to show the difference between 720p and 1080p
http://www.thebestplasmatv.com/guides/720p-vs-1080p/

So, you're comparing your ATV rip to the original Blu-Ray? Not even close, homie. Comb this forum, dude...that is NOT a fair comparison and the difference in quality will have little or nothing to do with resolution. The difference, instead, is due to the bit rates for the source. ATV rips are less than half the bit rate of a full up Blu-Ray. This is not speculation, it is fact...and therein lies the difference in our stances.

The fact is that these are the main types of content most people are going to have access to, 720p self encoded, 720p Apple encoded or 1080p Blu-ray rip. So people want a 1080p player to play there 1080p rips which look better than there 720p rips, fact homie.

 

[Mach1.8]

Ok then lets take bitrates and encoding completely out of the equation.

Do the following, this is something anybody can do to see the difference for themselves.

1. Take a full 1080p screen capture from a Blu-ray and save it in any uncompressed format.
2. Open a copy of the capture in a image program like photoshop or gimp.
3. Resize the image from 1920x1080 to 1280x720.
4. Now resize it back up from 1280x720 to 1920x1080 so that it remains the same physical size as the original.
5. Now compare both images on your HDTV and tell me you can't see a difference and one hasn't lost detail.

Infact this site has done exactly that to show the difference between 720p and 1080p
http://www.thebestplasmatv.com/guides/720p-vs-1080p/



The fact is that these are the main types of content most people are going to have access to, 720p self encoded, 720p Apple encoded or 1080p Blu-ray rip. So people want a 1080p player to play there 1080p rips which look better than there 720p rips, fact homie.

The minute you say take the bitrates out of the equation, your argument goes out the door. You can't compare PQ from various sources without accounting for bitrate. The image capture test, while interesting, isn't compelling. Screen capture programs use their own form of compression, so again, not an apples to apples comparison.

Your last sentence makes no sense. You end with "fact, homie" but you didn't really introduce any facts that support your stance. BUT, In an attempt to stay on topic and not get in a flame war with a fellow forum member, I will stipulate that IF one believes 1080p is an added value for them, than by all means, the Boxee box is worth a mere extra $100.

On a side note, I'm beginning to wonder about the future of downloaded or ripped video in my home theater. Not only is Blu-Ray tops in PQ, I recently got onboard with the HD audio portion (my new player has analog outs). It's awesome and something that my ATV will not be able to reproduce

 

[bigpatky]

The minute you say take the bitrates out of the equation, your argument goes out the door. You can't compare PQ from various sources without accounting for bitrate. The image capture test, while interesting, isn't compelling. Screen capture programs use their own form of compression, so again, not an apples to apples comparison.

I completely agree with your point, but on the other hand, many (on both sides of the argument) have broken down the argument into simply resolution, leaving out bitrate, etc anyway.

all things being equal, 1080p looks better than 720p. but things are never just equal and it is entirely possible that someone sees video of both resolutions and sees no difference or actually sees a better pq in the 720p video.

 

[Mach1.8]

I completely agree with your point, but on the other hand, many (on both sides of the argument) have broken down the argument into simply resolution, leaving out bitrate, etc anyway.

all things being equal, 1080p looks better than 720p. but things are never just equal and it is entirely possible that someone sees video of both resolutions and sees no difference or actually sees a better pq in the 720p video.

Good point...

 

[roidy]

The minute you say take the bitrates out of the equation, your argument goes out the door. You can't compare PQ from various sources without accounting for bitrate. The image capture test, while interesting, isn't compelling. Screen capture programs use their own form of compression, so again, not an apples to apples comparison.

And there lies the major problem, a fair comparison isn't possible because how do you encode a 720p file in order to compare it to a 1080p file, you can't encode them both with the same bitrate as each other because that gives the 720p file an advantage, so how do you decide the bitrates for both files to compare them equally. An accurate comparison of encoded 720p vs 1080p is probably impossible.

Your last sentence makes no sense. You end with "fact, homie" but you didn't really introduce any facts that support your stance. BUT, In an attempt to stay on topic and not get in a flame war with a fellow forum member, I will stipulate that IF one believes 1080p is an added value for them, than by all means, the Boxee box is worth a mere extra $100.

Now I throught my last sentance made perfect sense Oh well... I'll try to elaborate. The majority of people who buy boxes like the ATV or Boxee Box generaly either purchase Apples 720p media, encode there own media in a 720p format or rip 1080p media from a blu-ray disk, now given those 3 types of media people have access to then 1080p media is going to look better than either of the 720p options.

On a side note, I'm beginning to wonder about the future of downloaded or ripped video in my home theater. Not only is Blu-Ray tops in PQ, I recently got onboard with the HD audio portion (my new player has analog outs). It's awesome and something that my ATV will not be able to reproduce

Haven't gotten into the whole HD audio thing yet, still prefer to listen through headphones.

Peace

 

[Seydlitz]

This discussion has been beaten to death, but I have to say your claim is patently absurd. 1080p on anything less than a 42 inch TV is wasted for the most part.

No, you are confusing some important things. Size has to do with it, but the real issue is distance.

1080P is wasted on normal viewing distances. Usually people do not sit close enough to see the difference. As you have to sit closer on smaller TV's it's usually a bigger problem as a sitting room isn't set up to sit so close. There is absolutely no technical reason why 1080P is useless on a smaller screen... but there is a practical reason for most of us^^

A common example:

If you use a 24" desk monitor on a regular desk computer distance... you will see it. The claims that people do and do not see the difference is not just bitrate, but also how they watch it.


Completely unrelated, the lack of the 1080P will be a marketing weakness. The consumer is convinced 1080P is important considering television salesmen have been using this as sales point rather successfully for years.

 

[bigpatky]

This.

Completely unrelated, the lack of the 1080P will be a marketing weakness. The consumer is convinced 1080P is important considering television salesmen have been using this as sales point rather successfully for years.

 

[Airforcekid]

This.

Can't wait till we get 2160P though would that be retina on a 50 inch?

 

[VoR]

I'd much rather buy a boxee box over the atv, but for the money there's no chance I'd be getting anything other than an ION based net top.

I do like their remote though, I'd like to see them sold separately (although whoever chose the glossy plastic look over the matte effect that was in the prototypes needs firing)

 

[roidy]

When the boxee box was first announced they said the remote would be available to buy separately as well.

 

[notjustjay]

I'm going to get a Boxee Box when they come out here in Canada. I was really excited about the new Apple TV, but the fact is that most of my media is stored on a NAS in my basement, and Apple TV simply won't serve media up from anything but an actual instance of iTunes on a Mac or a PC.

That remote looks amazing, and the fact that it's RF makes it even better so I can hide the box itself. I plan to have one in my living room and in my kitchen.

 

[Mach1.8]

No, you are confusing some important things. Size has to do with it, but the real issue is distance.

1080P is wasted on normal viewing distances. Usually people do not sit close enough to see the difference. As you have to sit closer on smaller TV's it's usually a bigger problem as a sitting room isn't set up to sit so close. There is absolutely no technical reason why 1080P is useless on a smaller screen... but there is a practical reason for most of us^^

A common example:

If you use a 24" desk monitor on a regular desk computer distance... you will see it. The claims that people do and do not see the difference is not just bitrate, but also how they watch it.


Completely unrelated, the lack of the 1080P will be a marketing weakness. The consumer is convinced 1080P is important considering television salesmen have been using this as sales point rather successfully for years.

I don't think I confused anything. Of course, seating distance is a huge factor, but for the purposes of this discussion, it should be a given that the would be viewer is seated at an appropriate distance. The reason why 1080p is less important on smaller sets is because you cram the same number of pixels (1920x1080) into a smaller space, making it problematic to observe any differences between that and a 720p source (again, as you indicated, assuming a reasonable viewing distance). Another test would be how close you would have to sit to this set to discern the pixel structure. But I don't see how my previous post confused any of this

Edit: actually, now that I think about it, you are talking about 720p and 1080p TVs whereas the discussion you are referencing is about source material. There's a difference! Ugg...I'm retiring!

 

[steviem]

fact homie.

Peace

Please tell me you have a soul patch and go to Newquay for surfing...

I won't get into the 1080p vs. 720p fight, of course 1080p is better than 720p, especially when 1080p with a superior bitrate is a huge file compared to a 720p file.

Most of my content is only standard def, although when it will come to home movies, I will be doing them in 720p and above, also the only resolution I can get NFL and NCAA football in seems to be 720p, which again, is good enough for me, if that is all I can get.

Maybe Apple is waiting on 4k though.

 

[roidy]

Please tell me you have a soul patch and go to Newquay for surfing...

lol.... Unfortunately no on both counts.

Maybe Apple is waiting on 4k though.

Please don't say that, can you imagine the bandwidth you'd need to stream it

 

[Mach1.8]

lol.... Unfortunately no on both counts.



Please don't say that, can you imagine the bandwidth you'd need to stream it

Not the mention I'd have to run out and buy ANOTHER new TV!

 

[brbubba]

I'm going to get a Boxee Box when they come out here in Canada. I was really excited about the new Apple TV, but the fact is that most of my media is stored on a NAS in my basement, and Apple TV simply won't serve media up from anything but an actual instance of iTunes on a Mac or a PC.

That remote looks amazing, and the fact that it's RF makes it even better so I can hide the box itself. I plan to have one in my living room and in my kitchen.

Yeah that's the major deal killer for aTV, not being able to play media files off a server and no support for MKV or other exotic formats. The one nice thing about the boxee box is that I know it will work with any file anywhere. Power wise it's not a comparison, the new hardware in the Boxee box can play two simultaneous 1080p streams.

The only possible downside to boxee is the media library, it seems to miss quite a few things if your labels aren't perfect. Also there doesn't seem to be an option to change sorting, e.g., I have a large series of movies that I want in TV shows but I can't see any way to do that without altering the database manually.

 

[roidy]

The Boxee Box has just visited the FCC to get approved and a load of internal pictures have been posted for those that are interested in such things:-

http://www.wirelessgoodness.com/2010/09/24/teardown-a-look-inside-d-links-boxee-box/

I don't know, I'm just not feeling the build quality It's looks more like the inside of a 1950's valve radio I'm still interested in the remote of use with my XBMC ION box through.

 

[WildGuess]

The Boxee Box has just visited the FCC to get approved and a load of internal pictures have been posted for those that are interested in such things:-

http://www.wirelessgoodness.com/2010/09/24/teardown-a-look-inside-d-links-boxee-box/

I don't know, I'm just not feeling the build quality It's looks more like the inside of a 1950's valve radio I'm still interested in the remote of use with my XBMC ION box through.

Thanks for the link. I've got my order in, don't know what to make of those pics. Truly looks homemade, how can the Chinese duplicate the old erector set base? Gotta believe it's a prototype for FCC approval.

 

[brbubba]

Thanks for the link. I've got my order in, don't know what to make of those pics. Truly looks homemade, how can the Chinese duplicate the old erector set base? Gotta believe it's a prototype for FCC approval.

Could have been homemade or a prototype.

 

[roidy]

Thanks for the link. I've got my order in, don't know what to make of those pics. Truly looks homemade, how can the Chinese duplicate the old erector set base? Gotta believe it's a prototype for FCC approval.

lol, Great now I've got this image in my mind of some guy sat in his garden shed building them out of recycled radio parts and bits of old toaster ovens