Boxee is yet another media centre for the Mac!

But at it's latest release, Boxee Beta, it has matured into a feature packed application with a killer user interface. Boxee allows you to access your local media files in a very smart, easy to use, big screen interface. Integration with IMDB and other internet based databases allow your media files to be tagged with artwork and meta data automatically, no configuration required.

Boxee is highly integrated with Internet TV shows, with automatic access to internet based TV networks based on geographic location. In addition, using Boxee apps, you have access to a huge number of independent internet based TV services.

Want to know what your friends are watching and recommending? Boxee also has a social element that allows you to follow friends and see their recommendations in your Boxee queue. If it's available on the internet, you can watch it directly from their recommendation!

Surfing the web and spot a video you would like to see later on your big TV screen at home? Boxee has a neat, easily installable bookmarklet that installs in your browser. One click, and the video is added to your Boxee queue and will be waiting for you when you get home.

Of course, you don't need a big screen TV to use Boxee, it's a standard OSX application (and Windows and Linux) that will run happily on any Intel based Mac.

Add in the ability to control Boxee from your Apple remote, an OSX Desktop widget and the free Boxee iPhone app, and you've got a great way to manage and access your media and the latest internet based content.

For people outside the US, I also demonstrate using a free VPN service as a proof of concept for accessing various service.

The full show covers:

Getting a Boxee Account & Installation
Basic Boxee Operation
UI Overview
Boxee Feed
Queue
Movies
Boxee Popup Navigator
Playback Controls
TV Shows
Using a VPN
Hotspot Shield
Boxee Apps
Access to File System
Being Social with Boxee
Boxee Bookmarklet
Apple Remote & Snow Leopard Fix
Other Remote Options

Interesting show Don,   I'm looking to buy a MacMini very shortly to use as a HTPC and the timing of this screencast was excellent for me.   I'm a big Plex user and although I signed up for the early Boxee Beta I never received an invite and hadn't realised it was now open to all.

I've installed Boxee on my MBP as a test and linked it to my Media stored on a NAS.   Install was easy and setup pretty straight forward,  the interface is clean and easy to navigate, everything is much more automated than Plex  and that’s where the problem lies for me.  I have no control over it.   A large portion of my library is incorrectly scrapped, Movies show with completely the wrong name  and a lot of my TV series are just missing completely.  I've spent a couple of hours now trying to sort it out but there appears to be no way to override Boxee and manually enter content or to correct mislabeled items,  from what I've read this morning these problems weren't around in the Alpha and you could manually override and correct errors.

Being Beta I'll check it out again in a few months and see if they have resolved these issues.

As a test run before buying the mini,  I'm going to install Plex as well and hook the Macbook Pro up to the TV to see how it performs running  as a HTPC.


Thanks for covering this.  

I liked the idea but have have not had a lot of success.  It has only listed a small number of my movies and has given up on my itunes music.  I have had a few crashes too, so I will wait a while to see if it settles down.

I watched the shows on Plex and aTV again after I saw the Boxee show.
Two questions come to mind:
- Does Boxee play DVD rips (ISO images) like Plex does?
- Does aTV Flash play files stored on a NAS, thus not on the Apple TV?

I did some testing with aTV flash and didn't like it.
The reason is that I want four things: Video_TS playback, from a NAS with multichannel sound and IMDB info. Now you can't get all four together with aTV.

After some testing with my MBP and rewatching Don's MMMC shows, I decided to go with the Mac Mini and Plex.

I took a look at your site IanD, read a few of the blogs but haven't had time to watch the Podcasts yet.
Anyway, I found the blogs contained such a wealth of useful info that I subscribed to your RSS feed and Podcasts right away.
It was a pleasure to read and I'm sure it will be a pleasure to watch too. Big thumbs up!  

Is it usual for Boxee to hog 80-90% of my CPU?  

I'm running it on a Macbook (10.6.2, 4 GB of RAM) and EVERY time that I start Boxee, my fans start racing and my CPU spikes.  The noise is incredible due to the fans racing.

I'm also curious about how to access Hulu content (TV shows and movies) from within Boxee.  Do I need to do this from within the "Boxee Browser" app?  I tried to do that, but nothing seems to work (not clickable) when I go to the Hulu site from with the Boxee Browser.

Any help on either of these issues would be great.

I feel dirty using Hotspot Shield and rather a paid option. I use WiTopia. It uses the Viscosity app and lets you choose from a variety of server locations to log into.


Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

I've been using WiTopia for around a year and a half and no issues when I use PPTP. Sometimes the SSL version can get disconnected and you have to reconnect to get it back, so I usually stick with PPTP.

The stream is always consistent and speeds are good (but, like you Don, I'm starting from a 50 Mbps download, so even losing 95% of that through the VPN gives me a workable download speed).