The pitch for the Boxee TV revolves around the “cloud DVR.” The device, a little flat black box about the size and shape of a VHS, comes with a high-def antenna, which, if you’re in a major media area (like New York, where I tested it–the others are Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas/Ft. So don’t give anyone money for it, not now. You can’t buy a product with the hopes it’ll work later–it has to work when you give someone money for it. I’ve been chatting with Boxee as I test the unit, and they keep telling me firmware updates are coming, but that’s not enough.
Boxee TV is in stores now, and in its current form, I can’t recommend anyone buy it. Boxee has done this kind of thing in the past with the Boxee Box, which was also basically broken at launch and was slowly fixed with firmware upgrades, but that doesn’t make this acceptable.
It performs like an early alpha–as it stands, it is not usable. What does make it bad is that the thing is nowhere near ready for retail. That doesn’t make it bad, though–as a component of a larger cord-cutting scheme, I think it has a lot of merit. The Boxee TV isn’t the one-size-fits-all solution I’d thought and hoped it would be. In its current form, I can’t recommend anyone buy it.But he was kind of right. I thought he was just trying to play nice with the content providers like Comcast and Viacom, feigning modesty so they wouldn’t see Boxee as an enemy. He said it was just a component, not a complete solution. That’s everything! But Ronen repeatedly insisted that the Boxee TV was not a cure-all for cord-cutters. It would have apps like Netflix and YouTube, sure, but it would also be a Boxee, so it’d play downloaded videos in that great, clean way Boxee always has, and then it’d have this cool new cloud DVR so it could record live TV shows and play them back on any device. When I spoke to Boxee CEO Avner Ronen in the run-up to the release of the Boxee TV, it was hard not to see the nascent set-top box as the best new tool for those wanting to ditch cable. You can pre-order Boxee Live TV from the website for $49 to be shipped this month.We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Plus, you can browse a listing of the most popular TV show recommendations from other Boxee users.
This adds the ability to share live TV shows along with the online content you are already sharing with your Boxee friends. Part of the Boxee experience is sharing what you are watching with other Boxee users. If you don’t want to get rid of cable, you can choose to connect a ClearQAM (unencrypted basic cable channels) to the Boxee Live TV dongle and can set it up to show the shows available from your cable provider. Premium content from Netflix and a variety of other online streaming sources along with your local ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox channels are combined in the Boxee experience. Better than connecting an antenna directly to your TV where you simply surf through channels, connect an HD antenna to the Boxee Live TV USB dongle and browse cover art for TV shows on broadcast TV channels you receive.īoxee believes that by adding live TV, more people will be able to “cut the cord,” that is quit their cable service. To offer an alternative to cable, Boxee offers hundreds of channels of online content, a web browser and now live TV.
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