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

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Preordered as well. I've got a nettop running boxee under Windows 7 now. It runs well, but this box will be great for a second box. the remote looks amazing.

The only thing I hate is Boxee's use of IMDB. It is a licensed copy of the database which isn't really kept in sync with IMDB itself, so you get occasional missing descriptions and crappy posters, especially compared to The TVDB. I just wish the devs would add support for local artwork.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2010 20:12

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# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 04:04

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

ilkhan posted:

Perfect.
Although I'm gonna have to rename human readable names to boxee approved dots and poo poo. "Name of Show - 00x00 - episode.mkv" apparently isn't gonna get correctly parsed by boxee. Same for movies. FML

That's exactly the naming convention I use with the current boxee beta and will be using with the box whenever Amazon decides to ship my poo poo. (Preordered two months ago, It would be nice for them to ship it on release day.) It works fine. I'd recommend throwing the year in the title for certain stuff like Doctor Who otherwise you might have issues.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2010 19:24

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

I really don't get what people are complaining about in regards to local content. You have a most popular tab that includes all of the most popular shows watched. Your local files are included here. You have a favorites tab. Your local files? Included here, too. And finally, you have a dedicated local media only tab. The only issue is that the software doesn't remember your last viewed tab yet.

EDIT: There's also the lack of a frequent scanning option, but that should be fixed in the next release.

ThinkFear fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Nov 22, 2010

# ¿ Nov 22, 2010 18:42

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

CrashCat posted:

Well, the main problem is all that stuff you mentioned is hidden under the back/menu button after you go into something else. None of it is accessible under those nice friendly buttons at the main screen and the software makes no effort to educate you on it. For a box that tries to be a little more non-techie friendly that kind of stuff is bad.

Some controls to expand a flash movie on a page to full screen at will and possibly control which flash movies actually load and run would both be nice. Of course a full-screen-ify button would probably need another remote button and they've cornered themselves on that one. Even simple zoom controls would help as far as arrowing over and trying to hit that usually tiny fullscreen button on the flash movie itself. As far as web browsers go, other than having support for a later version of Flash, the Boxee browser is less feature-rich than the Wii.

Non techies generally don't have terabytes of local media on a nas. That is likely why they made the Shows button go directly to Most Popular. However, they have spoken of correcting that to respect the user's preference. Hopefully by the next release. My understanding of the "hidden menu" is that it is really the heart of the interface. (In the beta, it even had neat little shortcuts to your favorite apps.) Especially now that the social aspects of the software are no longer on the home screen. Really, the home screen is just a pretty page for when the box boots.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2010 21:15

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Ziploc posted:

People really need to test drive Boxee software on their laptops. If you like it on your laptop/PC, it will be perfect on their TV with a cheap PC or a Boxee Box.

I was THIS close to picking up a Boxee Box on the holidays. But was turned off by the remote. So instead I'm going to put Boxee software an old computer behind the TV. I'm testing Boxee software on my laptop and have downloaded the Boxee remote to my iPhone. It's been fantastic so far.

I really hope my old 2.5GHZ HT 1Gb Ram and a lovely ATI card will be able to run the software well enough.

The version included on the Boxee box has underwent a shitload of UI changes since the beta versions currently available for download on Win/Linux/Mac.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2010 18:32

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

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

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

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

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

kri kri posted:

Can boxee not use tmdb?

When asked about using TVDB, the response was that they'd love to, however IMDB is the only one that supports commercial licensing.

Geera posted:

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.

Yeah, exactly. How often it is updated? Not a clue. They have a link to submit corrections and missing movies/shows, though.

Interestingly, some content does appear to be coming from TVDB and other sites, however all traffic of the sort is routed to Boxee's servers, and they claim that IMDB is their only scraper. This is all gleamed from reading the cesspool that is the Boxee forums, so take it as you will.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2011 19:43

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Vudu is up. Two months late, but none the less...

# ¿ Jan 14, 2011 23:38

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

n0n0 posted:

Are you sure? I just tried, and it was the same as usual...

edit: It is apparently available on the PC and Mac versions of Boxee, but not yet on Boxee Box.

The app was pulled. :argh:

# ¿ Jan 15, 2011 16:16

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

IMDB has the series listed, however no episode information is present. Try adding the episodes to IMDB perhaps?

# ¿ Jan 20, 2011 21:00

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Esk1 posted:

Does anyone here watch Top Gear (UK) on their boxeee? Season 16 scrapping is all messed up because of the Xmas Special they did and was wondering what I can do to fix it. Some sites have the Xmas special as 16-0 and as 16-1.

Just about everywhere still has these screwed up. Eventually, it'll either be moved to specials (0x89) or become 15x10. IMDB currently lists it as the latter, though for a third option, sickbeard currently lists it as 16x01 while including the air date and synopsis of the season premier.

Citycop posted:

My boxee has never scraped anything on my network, i always go to files -> browse

Yeah, you are doing it wrong.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2011 18:43

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Esk1 posted:

I should ask my question better, what does boxee use so that I can know what guidelines to follow?

A cached copy of the IMDB database stored on their end, with a little bit of TVDB thrown in. I'm going to try and get it to find it on my end and report back.

ThinkFear fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Jan 26, 2011

# ¿ Jan 26, 2011 02:45

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Caught that before the edit. I posted it only to realize it was quite convoluted. The simpler solution is to just see for myself.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2011 02:51

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Topgear Update: Boxee insists the Middle East special is 16x01, contrary to any other listing I can find. Personally, I'm going to ignore it for the time being until it is sorted. I'll submit a request to boxee's misidentified shows link and hopefully it should resolve itself. I manually identified it as episode 0 for now, though no synopsis comes up.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2011 03:08

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Esk1 posted:

I have it set up like boxee wants where middle east ep is 1 and then xmas special is 2. Then sunday's ep is the 3rd of the season. This is so wrong

Unfortunately, that pisses off sickbeard, which insists that the Yeti road test is the start of S16.

Jonathan, they've been promising nfo support for a while. Perhaps next release. Folder.jpg sort of works for movies at the moment, but not tv shows.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2011 03:17

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

How about an example file name? Naming conventions aren't particularly weird, no different than xbmc, for example.

Personally, I use "\TV Shows\Example Show\Season 1\Example Show - 01x02 - Episode Two.ext" and it works on drat near everything. Out of ~2000 episodes I've had maybe three things misidentified.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2011 21:46

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Citycop posted:

This is an example of something that would not work on my system:

Robot Rooster.S05E07.Schoneys Bucket.mkv

I'm assuming for some reason you are referring to Robot Chicken, and don't want to actually say it? Either that or you watch some super obscure poo poo. You'll note here that IMDB doesn't list an episode 7. Rename the file "robot Chicken - 5x08 - Schindler's Bucket List.mkv" and see what it does. Ditch the periods while you are at it, there is no issue with using spaces.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2011 02:20

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Citycop posted:

Well considering that it cant identify one show out of about hundreds of different movies and tv shows I highly doubt everything is not on IMBD.com Movies are named with:

Moviename (2006).avi

and TV shows are

SHownameS01E01.avi

I'm getting pretty tired of everyone acting like I'm the one that has the problem and I don't know how to rtfm. For some simple reason my box does not index.

If your not watching Robot Rooster your missing out.

So how about a few more examples? "SHownameS01E01.avi" is completely different than your previous example, by the way. Try the convention I suggested and report back. Use folders to separate individual shows and seasons. Put each movie in it's own folder as well. What are a few of the shows you are haivng problems with? Also, where is the media stored? You did actually add the directories under Settings/File Sources, correct?

# ¿ Feb 25, 2011 18:55

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Citycop posted:

So is there a particular reason you keep posting about your problem? You seem to have no actual interest in taking steps towards resolving them. I guess you just want to bitch and complain?

# ¿ Feb 26, 2011 16:06

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Macrame_God posted:

Ugh. I am not looking forward to having to ship this thing back to amazon and wait for them to send me another.

Send it back for a refund and order another right away? Amazon is great with returns.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2011 15:47

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Citycop posted:

For those still on the fence about buying one of these, after about 5 months of trying I have never been able to get it to identify even 1 media file from local or network sources.

There is little or no help for this issue available, you will just be told to "name your files correctly."

What I have tried:

1. Latest firmware (always)
2. Clearing the local media cache (there is nothing to clear)
3. Rebooting (over and over)
4. Moving the files to a local USB drive
5. Naming the files correctly:
code:
t:\video\Tv>dir
 Volume in drive T is terra
 Volume Serial Number is 0424-04F6

 Directory of t:\video\Tv

04/06/2011  08:08 AM    <DIR>          .
01/12/2011  10:06 PM    <DIR>          ..
09/21/2010  09:45 AM       586,257,082 Pawn Stars.S03E19.mkv
09/21/2010  10:26 AM       586,037,521 Pawn Stars.S03E20.mkv
12/15/2010  05:46 AM       585,803,185 Pawn Stars.S03E27.mkv
12/15/2010  07:23 AM       585,803,185 Pawn Stars.S03E28.mkv
02/01/2011  08:21 PM       586,220,337 Pawn Stars.S03E29.mkv
04/06/2011  08:09 AM       586,189,747 Pawn Stars.S03E41.mkv
               6 File(s)  3,516,311,057 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  351,949,492,224 bytes free
6: Adding the directory to the scanned folders list as video files
7. Manually identifying the files separately. After manually adding the file it does not show in the shows list (files)

Box plays media well but you have to browse for the files, indexing does not work. At all.

Pretty sure it was suggested that you put each tv show into its own directory last time you brought this up. That, and season three of Pawn Stars only goes up to episode 28, according to IMDB. When in doubt, follow their naming scheme rather than The TVDB's.

Do this:
"T:\Video\TV Shows\Pawn Stars\Season 3\Pawn Stars - 3x28 - Packing Heat.mkv"
Add the TV shows folder to the media list.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2011 15:44

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Citycop posted:

As I said before, no matter how you name the files or what directory you put them in.... I know you have a hard time letting that go but it's not the issue. For the love of Mary.

Anyway, I fixed the drat thing. I won't bitch about it anymore in your "love boxee box" thread. Full restore from a USB stick with the latest .iso downloaded from the boxee site did the trick. I suspect the database was corrupted or something.

Also I did find the RMA procedure from DLink if anyone needs it, good for 1 year from purchase:

http://support.dlink.com/products/warranty/1year_classb.pdf

You refuse to actually name your files properly. It is pretty hard to move beyond that step in troubleshooting if you won't do it and instead just bitch. I am glad that you resolved your problem, though I must ask, what is the point of your posts if you actually have no interest in following steps to resolve your issue? Improper naming conventions will continue to cause you problems, even now that you have the indexing working. Best of luck to you, however.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2011 17:58

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

Citycop posted:

Quoted from your quote where you quoted me showing you that my files are indeed named exactly correctly according to this guide:

http://support.boxee.tv/entries/42693-correctly-naming-local-media-files

,which you also referred me to before. Are you just trolling me to get a response?

Are you being intentionally obtuse? I never told you to use that (two year old) guide. I did tell you repeatedly to name your files as I previously suggested and told you to use folders. That is all. If, however, you honestly believe it is best practice to throw all of your poo poo into a single directory and hope for the best, have at it. I've attempted to help you, I now see that that was a mistake. As I said, best of luck.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2011 23:21

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# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 04:04

ThinkFear: Sep 15, 2007

I have no idea what inspired Samsung's purchase. I received a free boxee tv as part of their beta program and I felt ripped off. The boxee box had problems, but it could've been a great xbmc alternative if they actually bothered to patch the thing. Boxee TV on the other hand... :suicide:

What a step in the wrong direction. Maybe Samsung will turn it around.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2013 18:39

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