Yeah it's just you. Stop being so damn oversensitive. I find your oversensitivity to be offensive.
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CES 2011: Google TV Sees Delays
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I just got the Boxee Box.
It's a good product. It streams 1080p content, in pretty much any codec from a network share. The remote is AppleTV simple (with a mini qwerty on the back).
It automatically adds metadata to found TV and Movie content.
It also has a bunch of Apps which enable internet streaming from a very wide range of sources.
For my needs, this is a much better product than either the AppleTV or the GoogleTV.
C.
It's a good product. It streams 1080p content, in pretty much any codec from a network share. The remote is AppleTV simple (with a mini qwerty on the back).
It automatically adds metadata to found TV and Movie content.
It also has a bunch of Apps which enable internet streaming from a very wide range of sources.
For my needs, this is a much better product than either the AppleTV or the GoogleTV.
C.
There's a built in App for iPlayer.
It's currently getting C4 content from the Channel4 on YouTube (the individual shows appear in the TV Shows directory rather than through an app.)
No App for ITV Player yet. But I would not be surprised if someone created one.
C.
EDIT - apparently a Silverlight ITV player for Boxee is available.
$299 is ridiculous. The Apple TV is priced perfectly, and does exactly what it needs to do. It's most useful if you pirate your movies, as i do, and stream them from itunes. Good stuff, never have to physically connect my computer ever again. And streaming from the iPad is great. Once they add an app store it will be even better and will be the clear winner. Apple TV ftw!
With consumers, Google - the brand - is rock solid and more likely associated with "internet" or even "computer" than just "search."
I'm willing to bet the vast majority of users don't separate Google mail, form Google search engine from The Internet. It's all just one, big magic box - of which Google are major players.
No stats to back this up. Just a hunch.
I love Apple products. But not the AppleTV.
In the UK there are no TV shows available. None at all!
If you should download a movie, you have to transcode from MKV to MP4 - and then add it to iTunes before you can watch it. Adding metadata to movies and TV shows is immensely tiresome. Apple just don't want people using the AppleTV for non-purchased downloaded content.
With the Boxee box it's all automatic.
C.
Hehe, Google pushing the envelope a little too much. It is good to see the whole TV industry being turned upside down. I really hate watching cable and having to deal with commercials (even with DVR). Personally I would much rather pay for the TV shows I watch (rent, not buy). I think Apple is doing it right, hope that becomes the trend.
Well I usually try to download my movies already in MP4, and most of the time i do. I've never actually downloaded an MKV, if it's not MP4 is usually AVI. Apple definitely doesn't want people using it for non purchased content, but there's nothing they can do about it other than not allowing movies to be added to itunes that were not purchased on itunes, which would be an idiotic move. I also think that once the apple tv app store is out and vlc player is on
TV, it will be great. Won't even have to convert. I will never pay Apple for content. I do, however, pay for netflix. I know you guys don't have netflix in england, but it was another selling point for me because i don't have any other box that let's me stream netflix to my tv. It was just the perfect package for the perfect price. My nearest apple store is 15 minutes from my house, it was a total impulse buy, and i'm liking it a lot so far.
There are TV shows available to purchase but you can't rent them yet.
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I think the only way you could ever break in to this market is through your own content. Apple and Google should partner up and start a TV studio. Most of what is on TV today is crap, they would need 10-15 good shows. It wouldn't be cheap to do, but it would break the strong hold old media has now.
I wasn't surprised to read this. I don't own a GoogleTV device, but I've come away from every video or article I've read about it completely confused about what it's supposed to offer me. It seems like a beta that's still at that "jumble of interesting yet unfocused ideas" stage that Google was a little too eager to get out the door, and now it's out there with no clear identity as a product. Yeah, it does a little Internet video and it does TV listings search and it does some of this and that, but for any product like this to entice people, it has to do at least one thing extraordinarily well, if not far better than anything else out there. And I have yet to hear what about GoogleTV reaches that mark.
Well again, an internet company that to me is known for mail and search doesn't sound like a first choice for purchasing a tv. Perceptions are what they are. It is no anti-google spin I offer. It is my perception. And I wonder how many others share that view?
I think you're oversimplifying. Yes, consumers associate Google with Internet and computers, but you have to then consider what consumers think when they hear "computers." A vast majority think of headaches, blue screens of death, freeze ups, weird problems, having to call their geek friends to figure something out, bringing work home, etc. What do they think of when they think of TV? Dead-simple, instant-on entertainment that just about never fails.
So ask yourself how eager the average, non-geek consumer is about dragging all that computer and Internet baggage over to their TV world. I think Google has a very hard sell ahead of them.
BTW, what I just said explains why set-top boxes are popular--because it keeps all that potential complication in its own little box that can be unplugged and disconnected if necessary. It's less threatening to a consumer's comfort if all that possible difficulty is contained in its own box.
I also think that once the apple tv app store is out and vlc player is on
The AppleTV does all it's video playback in hardware. And the way Apple uses the hardware requires that all of the content to be in exactly the right format.
VLC will play anything, in theory, but does the work on the CPU.
I am pretty certain that there is just not enough horsepower to do 720p playback. So don't expect VLC to solve the transcoding problem.
I have been using the old (intel) AppleTV as a media streamer since it came out. But there's a lot of shortcomings....
Conversion of content. Handbrake does not always work. Dolby audio is often lost in the conversion process. Subtitles are always lost in the conversion process. (and so on).
Boxee just plays this stuff. Including very high bitrate 1080p. It also adds cover art, metadata, and there's no need to use iTunes!
If this is your favoured way of getting movies and TV. The AppleTV really is second best.
C.
Interesting to hear that you like Boxee .. I ran it on my 1st gen ATV for a while and found it a bit cluttered for my uses so I used XBMC instead.
Does it offer any integration with iPhoto / iTunes music? Lack of wife friendly content management for music / photos is what has made me stick with ATV for the time being, converting to h.264 for all the content is kind of a pain but tolerable as long as you're not doing a whole bunch at once.
Monty
I have no idea. But the idea sounds like we are rapidly away from "It just works" and rapidly towards a Microsoftian techno-kludge workaround.
C.
Are the HD films you watch on your Boxee Box downloaded direct from the Boxee Box interface?
I tried out the original Boxee on ATV hack too.
And it was pretty dreadful. It had the horrible cluttered user-interfaces from XBMC. And the software codecs meant that 720p content would not play back
at much more than 15fps.
The new interface is radically de-cluttered.
The hardware is dramatically more powerful than the AppleTV. And it's even more powerful than my (intel) C2D MacMini. The Mac Mini drops frames with 1080p content.
There is a photos app and a music app. But I have not used either. I think it will stream shared iTunes music files - but isn't a true client.
C.
Are the HD films you watch on your Boxee Box downloaded direct from the Boxee Box interface?
Depends. Some is directly streamed. But yes, some I download and drop on a server. Boxee automatically identifies and meta-tags the content.
I see your point, but AppleTV's selling point is simplicity. Without that simplicity, it really isn't good for anything much.
C.
This is exactly my dilemma. I currently have an
TV (old version), WDTV Live+, and a dual-core Atom HTPC w/XBMC. I have also toyed with several other streamers. Plex, and a few others. The fact is that there is nothing out there that I have found that does it all. The TV interface is the best of the bunch, but converting to iTunes format can get tiresome (and you lose functionality in the process); WDTV plays most anything but the interface leaves a lot to be desired in the wife-friendly area; XBMC and Plex have nice GUIs and the integrated scrapers work well when they work, but fixing problems can be a nightmare. I have not tried the Boxee Box, but I did use the Boxee plugin with my TV and did not like the "extras" that supposedly made it ""special" (all the social networking garbage). Why can't there be a single box that does everything well and is easy to use? BTW I rip my own DVDs to video_ts format and prefer a box that will play that format with menus.