The Boxee Box - Like XBMC, but more Boxee - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > The Boxee Box - Like XBMC, but more Boxee

MMD3: May 16, 2006; Montmartre -> Portland

StopMakingSense posted:

I know people are tinkering with code to get it to work with XBMC, and others talking about how portable that will be to, say, a boxee app. Nothing concrete though.

word, guess we'll have to wait and see.

can anyone tell me if there's a way to take a thread here on SA, say the post youtube videos thread and turn it into an RSS feed that can be fed to Boxee and strip everything but the videos posted?

also, what's the point of tagging movies as watched? I'm looking for a way to browse all unwatched movies but not seeing it... it'd be nice if I could configure the homepage to make unwatched movies or shows show up there rather than the random web content they have.

MMD3 fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Jan 5, 2011

# ? Jan 5, 2011 17:56

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# ? May 17, 2024 15:49

bilperkins2: Nov 22, 2004; Fashion for Dogz

MMD3 posted:

word, guess we'll have to wait and see.

can anyone tell me if there's a way to take a thread here on SA, say the post youtube videos thread and turn it into an RSS feed that can be fed to Boxee and strip everything but the videos posted?

I don't know specifically, but Boxee really isn't the device for things like that. XMBC is the one that's customizable to an extreme. Boxee is more about hoping Boxee includes what you want (and in many cases they do)

# ? Jan 5, 2011 18:15

kri kri: Jul 18, 2007

Are they going to update the Windows binaries? I would like to test out the newest software before getting one of these boxes.

# ? Jan 5, 2011 18:34

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

MMD3 posted:

can anyone tell me if there's a way to take a thread here on SA, say the post youtube videos thread and turn it into an RSS feed that can be fed to Boxee and strip everything but the videos posted?

There are plenty of browser plugins for ripping videos off a page but I can't say I ever saw one that made RSS output. That said if they would make a public API for "watch later" some intrepid programmer could make a plugin or program to scrape a page and put items in there. I'm guessing the odds of that happening aren't high due to the support issues though. Probably the same reason they put in such a bare bones web browser.

# ? Jan 5, 2011 18:40

MMD3: May 16, 2006; Montmartre -> Portland

so I finally got my shares indexing after opening up some ports and what not...

so far so good, just a few things bugging me that I'm hoping they'll resolve in future releases. Here's my "irritation list" at the moment.

not all movies are being indexed
hard to tell when you reschedule it to scan when it's actually going to scan or if it'll fix file renames and folder.jpg changes
when you identify movies it almost always adds the cover art for the previous movie you identified and then you have to go back in and do it a second time to fix it.
no way to remove movies or music that you don't want displayed in the interface... ie: I have a bunch of music in my music folder that is maybe single tracks by obscure artists or remixes and for sake of OCD'ness I'd like to just clean house from the boxee interface by telling it to not index certain files.
no way to add unidentified files to your library if they don't come up in a search
no way to remove unidentified files from the unidentified list if you want to just get rid of them (ie: quite a few video samples showing up in my movie folders)
wish there was a way to change the featured content displayed on the homepage... like to unwatched shows or movies I have or something more relevant to what I want to see.
in the main navigation bar it only displays shows and movies... why not music and photos as well? those are the 4 main categories that are indexed, why should I have to go into files to navigate to music?
apps seem to have to be loaded/installed every time I use boxee, why can't it cache them?
no way to manually rename files or rearrange them in the interface... ie, for trilogies they're displayed in alphabetical when you'd want them to be chronological.
minor annoyance but the main button on the remote is positioned dead center, makes it difficult to tell which way you're holding the remote when you pick it up without looking... typically I find myself scrolling up when I meant to scroll down or vice versa before flipping it around.

hoping most of these will be resolved in a future update, other than that it's an amazing device with a ton of potential. I've watched a few movies on it so far and it seems to play 1080p mkv files over wireless without any major issues other than maybe having to buffer once every 20 minutes or so, I'm assuming if I could run a network cable to it that'd be resolved.

# ? Jan 6, 2011 07:43

Cornjob: Jun 12, 2007; NOT AN ACTOR

Ive been using mine for 2 days now, and I am liking it more and more.

My major gripes are over issues that are well known, (aspect) and should be resolved in service pack 3.

My other issues seem to be self inflicted, but im still working with them.

I have around 700 rips of my own DVD and Blu Ray collection, and I was lazy when naming them, and didnt add the year in parenthesis.

My extensive horror collection means I have 2-3 movies with the same title, but different productions from different years.

I tried using theRenamer, and was very pleased. It only mis-identified a few. It renamed my whole library with the correct imdb entry, so when I re scanned with boxee, only about 3 of 700 titles were missed.

One cool feature I like for boxee is this: If you have 3 versions of 1 movie (example: Blade Runner) it only creates one cover art icon. Then when you click the icon you can select which version, based on the file name. It keeps the cover art gallery looking clean.

I would really like it if they added themoviedb cover art scraper. The imdb poster gallery is horrendous. Lots of early 90's VHS covers in there, especially on older horror movies.

I miss my original theatrical cover art, provided by themoviedb.

Cornjob fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Jan 7, 2011

# ? Jan 7, 2011 01:04

MMD3: May 16, 2006; Montmartre -> Portland

Cornjob posted:

Ive been using mine for 2 days now, and I am liking it more and more.

My major gripes are over issues that are well known, (aspect) and should be resolved in service pack 3.

My other issues seem to be self inflicted, but im still working with them.

I have around 700 rips of my own DVD and Blu Ray collection, and I was lazy when naming them, and didnt add the year in parenthesis.

My extensive horror collection means I have 2-3 movies with the same title, but different productions from different years.

I tried using theRenamer, and was very pleased. It only mis-identified a few. It renamed my whole library with the correct imdb entry, so when I re scanned with boxee, only about 3 of 700 titles were missed.

One cool feature I like for boxee is this: If you have 3 versions of 1 movie (example: Blade Runner) it only creates one cover art icon. Then when you click the icon you can select which version, based on the file name. It keeps the cover art gallery looking clean.

I would really like it if they added themoviedb cover art scraper. The imdb poster gallery is horrendous. Lots of early 90's VHS covers in there, especially on older horror movies.

I miss my original theatrical cover art, provided by themoviedb.

any idea of how to remove a cover added by boxee to replace it with a folder.jpg? I've got the LoTR trilogy and two of the covers are in one style while a third is a different style because boxee went with the database art rather than the folder.jpg...

# ? Jan 7, 2011 01:30

Cornjob: Jun 12, 2007; NOT AN ACTOR

MMD3 posted:

any idea of how to remove a cover added by boxee to replace it with a folder.jpg? I've got the LoTR trilogy and two of the covers are in one style while a third is a different style because boxee went with the database art rather than the folder.jpg...

With the exception of screensavers, there is no customizing of the boxee box. I dont believe the boxee software can do this, either.

If they added support for themoviedb, you could upload art you want. In fact, its probably already there.
http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/120/posters

Cornjob fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Jan 7, 2011

# ? Jan 7, 2011 02:00

MMD3: May 16, 2006; Montmartre -> Portland

Cornjob posted:

With the exception of screensavers, there is no customizing of the boxee box. I dont believe the boxee software can do this, either.

If they added support for themoviedb, you could upload art you want. In fact, its probably already there.
http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/120/posters

yeah, it'd be nice if you could pick...

somehow I ended up with two of them being this style:
http://hwcdn.themoviedb.org/posters/e60/4bc9038b017a3c57fe000e60/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-fellowship-of-the-ring-original.jpg

which was the folder.jpg's I have

and the last being this style:
http://hwcdn.themoviedb.org/posters/f05/4bc903ad017a3c57fe000f05/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-return-of-the-king-original.jpg

minor annoyance but just wish they allowed for some better customizability.

# ? Jan 7, 2011 02:22

Cornjob: Jun 12, 2007; NOT AN ACTOR

Last night was a bad night for my Boxee.

First, I had no video, but I did have audio, then about 5 mins later, I got the "red screen of death". A few others have experienced it on the boxee forums

http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=25080

Then when I rebooted, it started working again, but my boxee remote is not working anymore.

If it were not for the boxee iphone remote app, id be out of luck.

Hopefully a few firmware updates will fix all this.

Edit:

Red screen of death occurring frequently, and the remote is still not working. Im exchanging the whole mess.

Cornjob fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Jan 9, 2011

# ? Jan 8, 2011 17:15

kri kri: Jul 18, 2007

Has there been any progress on installing xbmc onto one of these? I seem to remember Avner saying they would support this, might be pie in the sky though.

# ? Jan 8, 2011 19:50

atrowe: May 20, 2001

Its been a week since Avner promised VUDU support was a week away. Has the Boxee team ever made a deadline?

# ? Jan 8, 2011 21:05

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Well, there's this:

Boxee via twitter posted:

Boxee Box firmware update will come out later today

I guess we'll find out within a few hours.

# ? Jan 8, 2011 21:36

StopMakingSense: Sep 16, 2004; Sax and Violins

atrowe posted:

Its been a week since Avner promised VUDU support was a week away. Has the Boxee team ever made a deadline?

He said it would be this week with the update. Probably needs some DRM component thats in SP3.

edit:

latest:

Boxee on Twitter posted:

close to midnight at Vegas. working on the build. last kink to solve with the VUDU app. will release the firmware tomorrow with or without.

StopMakingSense fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Jan 9, 2011

# ? Jan 9, 2011 01:16

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Then there's this:

Boxee via Twitter last night posted:

close to midnight at Vegas. working on the build. last kink to solve with the VUDU app. will release the firmware tomorrow with or without.

And today is almost through. However, the team did find time to add some netflix icons to their website and enable the netflix linking on the user services pages. Where that leaves us? Not a drat clue.

# ? Jan 10, 2011 02:20

StopMakingSense: Sep 16, 2004; Sax and Violins

ThinkFear posted:

Then there's this:

And today is almost through. However, the team did find time to add some netflix icons to their website and enable the netflix linking on the user services pages. Where that leaves us? Not a drat clue.

At this point I think he's trolling the people on the boxee forums.

edit: it is now up.

# ? Jan 10, 2011 05:10

Internet Explorer: Jun 1, 2005

The whole Netflix debacle with the Boxee Box is a joke. They keep listing Netflix as content partners all over their webpage and when they advertise, but it is still not available 2 months later. I think they've already missed 2 deadlines, with the current one being "late January." Awesome. It's a shame because this thing was going to be a day 1 buy for me, but I am really glad I waited and never preordered it.

# ? Jan 10, 2011 05:30

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Browser in new software update is way faster, can login to https now, and there is a services option now in the settings, obviously making way for netflix.

# ? Jan 10, 2011 15:47

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Looks like the update was yanked due to "major issues."

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/10/boxee-box-firmware-gets-updated-pulled-still-no-netflix-and/

# ? Jan 10, 2011 15:49

Internet Explorer: Jun 1, 2005

You could tell that the update was rushed and pushed out the door. The tone of the announcements and the tone on their forums was basically "we're working on it late into the night to get it out... okay go here it is!"

If you're still working on it late into the night and you release it that night, that doesn't leave much time for testing.

# ? Jan 10, 2011 16:29

devmd01: Mar 7, 2006; Elektronik
Supersonik

Definitely going to wait a few days and monitor the forums when they do actually release it, even if looking at the boxee forums is an entirely painful process. Here's the SP3 release notes, though that'll likely change once they get the final version out.

I'll definitely be happy that these are fixed:

* [BOXEE-6962] - Files section showing online episodes that *do not* exist on smb share.
* [BOXEE-7014] - Boxee Box crash or hang when manually identifying a file.
* [BOXEE-7223] - boxee crashed on shutdown and restarted automatically

And very, very happy these are being tweaked:

* [BOXEE-7022] - Can movies/albums/artists which start with "The" and "A" have the prefix ignored in the sort order
* [BOXEE-7430] - Forced subtitle automatic selection during MKV file playback

# ? Jan 10, 2011 17:13

bilperkins2: Nov 22, 2004; Fashion for Dogz

What's the word on Hulu (Plus)? Netflix is coming, "soon", but is there any discussion on Hulu? I want to put my PS3 back in the living room and just use the Boxee in the bedroom but Hulu is the only thing stopping me from doing it.

# ? Jan 11, 2011 01:33

Nall: Jun 26, 2000

Update is pretty nice. I am still missing the ability to add folder.jpg for tv shows like you can with movies, and also the ability to mark tv shows as watched manually, but at least using the SMB server doesn't cause the box to take up 99% CPU all the time anymore. Also hourly scanning isn't bugging out and requiring a reset anymore.

# ? Jan 13, 2011 00:56

bilperkins2: Nov 22, 2004; Fashion for Dogz

I'm still having those connection issues. It works fine over ethernet but won't connect to my wireless. I have half a dozen other devices that can connect no problem, but the Boxee Box can't for some reason. I've rebooted the router a dozen times, rebooted the Boxee, unplugged/plugged in, but it still says "Unable to setup the wireless network. Please check your password and try again". I know I'm entering the password right.

Any ideas?

# ? Jan 13, 2011 02:25

deong: Jun 13, 2001; I'll see you in heck!

Are you talking about the SP3? I checked my version and I'm still at 1.02 dec8. I forced an update check and still no luck. Did they re-release it from the botched release (resolution issues for 1080i).

# ? Jan 13, 2011 04:08

jonathan: Jul 3, 2005; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Any tips on getting Boxee (using the software right now as a trial) to identify videos that XBMC has no trouble identifying ?

For example, I have a bunch of mtnbiking movies, such as "The Collective" and the "New World Disorder" series. XBMC displays these fine, as well as lots of Henry Rollins material. The Boxee software doesn't. Is there a way for me to change the scraper to look where XBMC looks by default ? Curious if this is even an issue on the actual boxee box...

# ? Jan 13, 2011 04:22

deong: Jun 13, 2001; I'll see you in heck!

jonathan posted:

Any tips on getting Boxee (using the software right now as a trial) to identify videos that XBMC has no trouble identifying ?

For example, I have a bunch of mtnbiking movies, such as "The Collective" and the "New World Disorder" series. XBMC displays these fine, as well as lots of Henry Rollins material. The Boxee software doesn't. Is there a way for me to change the scraper to look where XBMC looks by default ? Curious if this is even an issue on the actual boxee box...

I've got a bunch of MTB vids as well... it doesn't pick a single loving one. I'm on a boxee box.. but it all comes down to the naming conventions. I'm pretty sure you can't change the scrappers either, at least not that I've found. The min that XBMC makes it to boxee I'll jump ship heh.

# ? Jan 13, 2011 05:02

Sneeze Party: Apr 26, 2002; These are, by far, the most brilliant photographs that I have ever seen, and you are a GOD AMONG MEN.; Toilet Rascal

deong posted:

I've got a bunch of MTB vids as well... it doesn't pick a single loving one. I'm on a boxee box.. but it all comes down to the naming conventions. I'm pretty sure you can't change the scrappers either, at least not that I've found. The min that XBMC makes it to boxee I'll jump ship heh.

That's what I was hoping to do, too. But I've been following some of the XBMC devs, and they have very little interest in developing XBMC for Boxee, at least so far.

# ? Jan 13, 2011 05:53

devmd01: Mar 7, 2006; Elektronik
Supersonik

deong posted:

Are you talking about the SP3? I checked my version and I'm still at 1.02 dec8. I forced an update check and still no luck. Did they re-release it from the botched release (resolution issues for 1080i).

You can do a manual upgrade. What a great idea, letting people who want to use your product and help make it better to test it out, instead of forcing out a botched firmware to everyone!

jonathan posted:

Any tips on getting Boxee (using the software right now as a trial) to identify videos that XBMC has no trouble identifying ?

Clicky. I used TVRenamer and 1-4a Rename to whip my files into shape.

devmd01 fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Jan 13, 2011

# ? Jan 13, 2011 14:28

tokki g: Aug 18, 2004

I like rename master. You can add stuff to the beginning/middle/end of file names, replace a phrase, etc. Really easy to use and makes renaming things that other programs (like TVRenamer) may not catch.

I have a bunch of comedy central presents episodes, but no season/ep data. Do I have to look it up and manually change them all or is there some program that will fix this for me? All files are named Comedy Central Presents NAME.avi with no season or ep data.

# ? Jan 13, 2011 14:53

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

IMDB has the info you need. As far as renaming them automatically? Try a few different renamers. Devmd linked a few. additionally, Ember Media Manager has TV support now. I always used TVRename (Different than TVRenamer) before I switched over to Sickbeard. How many episodes are we talking? It might just be quicker to do it by hand if it's only a season or two worth.

# ? Jan 13, 2011 15:50

deong: Jun 13, 2001; I'll see you in heck!

devmd01 posted:

You can do a manual upgrade. What a great idea, letting people who want to use your product and help make it better to test it out, instead of forcing out a botched firmware to everyone!

Clicky. I used TVRenamer and 1-4a Rename to whip my files into shape.

Thanks for the manual update. I changed my resolution from 1080i to 720p, loaded the update and it worked no problem. I then changed it back to 1080i and ran the test, it still works.. so woot.

As far as shows showing up in the scrapper, they've got to be avil on imdb.com right? The mtb films jonathan mentioned do not show up. I think we're going to be sol until scrapers can be added.

# ? Jan 13, 2011 17:20

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

deong posted:

Thanks for the manual update. I changed my resolution from 1080i to 720p, loaded the update and it worked no problem. I then changed it back to 1080i and ran the test, it still works.. so woot.

As far as shows showing up in the scrapper, they've got to be avil on imdb.com right? The mtb films jonathan mentioned do not show up. I think we're going to be sol until scrapers can be added.

Sort of. They licensed the database from IMDB, however IMDB doesn't allow access to their live site/database. Thus, results are typically similar, however the website may have things that boxee's own version doesn't and vice versa.

# ? Jan 13, 2011 21:27

kri kri: Jul 18, 2007

Can boxee not use tmdb?

# ? Jan 13, 2011 22:49

geera: May 20, 2003

ThinkFear posted:

Sort of. They licensed the database from IMDB, however IMDB doesn't allow access to their live site/database. Thus, results are typically similar, however the website may have things that boxee's own version doesn't and vice versa.

Does that mean that when I add content to my Boxee Box it scrapes a copy of the IMDB database hosted locally or on Boxee's servers, and not IMDB directly? If so, do we know how often that gets updated?

I actually assumed it used IMDB for movies and the TVDB for TV shows, but I have nothing to base those assumptions on.

# ? Jan 13, 2011 22:49

priznat: Jul 7, 2009; Let's get drunk and kiss each other all night.

I just saw this tweet from @boxee:

@boxee posted:

Boxee Box firmware update is being tested by our Early Access users. We're doing some more testing and hope to be able to release it soon.

Another update already? Anyone in the Early Access and can spill what's in it?

# ? Jan 13, 2011 22:51

Internet Explorer: Jun 1, 2005

priznat posted:

I just saw this tweet from @boxee:

Another update already? Anyone in the Early Access and can spill what's in it?

Not that I've been following, but maybe they are talking about SP3?

# ? Jan 13, 2011 23:06

priznat: Jul 7, 2009; Let's get drunk and kiss each other all night.

But I thought SP3 was released? I downloaded it a couple days ago and I don't even think that was the first day it was out.

# ? Jan 13, 2011 23:15

deong: Jun 13, 2001; I'll see you in heck!

priznat posted:

But I thought SP3 was released? I downloaded it a couple days ago and I don't even think that was the first day it was out.

SP3 was pulled from the main upgrade path due to red screening 1080i boxes. The manual update is avil, check devmd01's post. I'd imagine they are talking sp3.1 or whatever, to fix the red screen issues. Probably nothing else added.

I'm willing to be wrong though

# ? Jan 13, 2011 23:42

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# ? May 17, 2024 15:49

priznat: Jul 7, 2009; Let's get drunk and kiss each other all night.

Ah ok I just saw "new update" and hit upgrade a few days ago. Didn't even realize there was an issue with it, must have skipped reading that post.

Works great for me anyway..

Dang I was hoping for netflix

# ? Jan 13, 2011 23:44

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