I had, but I couldn't seem to find what I wanted. Thanks for taking me right there

I guess around $200 is still the minimum. There are a couple $139 barebones systems, then it's $39 minimum for the hard drive, plus memory. Oh well, I'll wait a little longer

Sorry if I missed it, what software will run on these $200 DIY boxes to provide the functionality? What base OS does that software run on?

No software (other than a Windows driver disc) comes with the "barebones" versions. So one installs the OS+apps of choice, be it from an XBMC LiveCD or Mythbuntu or whatever.

Heck, one could even then install Boxee, or multiboot into Boxee, Myth, XBMC, and anything else.

Cheers

Will XBMC support hardware-based decode/playback on such a system?

Th Zotac you mentioned seems pretty nice, but most of the other ones in the Newegg link are kind of underwhelming - meh.

So it's more like $250 rather than $200. Still better than $350+ from a few months ago.

Yup, full hardware decode. They say the HD-ID11 was designed *for* XBMC. Dunno if that's true or not -- I've never used XBMC myself, but MythTV has full hardware decode on my HD-ID11.

A system like that looks really good to me for $250 (hey, I bought one!), and can do so much more than the dedicated boxees that retail for $50 less.

And dagnabbit.. I've lost the model name of a very similar unit a buddy showed me -- about $20 cheaper than the Zotac, with a faster Atom (1.8GHz rather than 1.6GHz), extra DIMM slot, but no SPDIF out.

Cheers

Jetway seems to be the other big player in that market. Maybe this is the one you were thinking about?

Yeah, that's it! Last week it was on sale for CDN$199, either at newegg.ca or ncix.com. Looked great to me, except HDMI was the only output path for digital audio.

Shuttle also has a nice looking fanless unit in this category, with a massive internal heatsink. But closer to $300 than $200 for the bare box.

Cheers

Mmm.. now that the holiday season has ended, prices seem to have gone up on most of these units, putting a boxee-beater back up into the $275 range.

I think we're still left with the conundrum of not having any suitable software to run on a DIY system. I just revisited the XBMC web site - they have no clear vision of what their project should look like, instead hosting horribly designed skin after horribly designed skin.

Don't get me wrong, some of the skins are pretty, but the concept of "skin" is apt, because the initial beauty is only skin deep. None of them are thought out well enough to feel like they were carefully developed and implemented as part of a complete finished product. They're all just gloss, and IMO, even half-decent UX is lacking in all of the ones I've seen listed. They're all variations on the same bad idea.

Boxee still exists as a free download for Linux.

Desktop Boxee hasn't been updated for ages and its an extremely low priority task for Boxee to do so. They've said that they're concentrating on the Boxee Box and other Boxee devices first.

The desktop verson is still 0.9 something and has the old UI.

Is there some problem with the old UI? I've been using it and don't have any issues.

The default skin for the version of XBMC I downloaded ages ago (MediaStream) seems basically equivalent to the Boxee skin. I'm not really sure what you're going on about.

The old UI works for me but I've never used the new UI at all so no idea if its better or not.

Just saying that the desktop version is currently a deadend in terms of development/updates because Boxee aren't doing anything about it.

That didn't last long. The Zotac HD-ID11 is "on sale" again now for CDN$210, $20 of which might be refunded by MIR.

Cheers

The old UI is deprecated and has a number of usability issues along with the build having many bugs.



The XBMC screen shots on their current page as well as those of all the skins, look absolutely nothing like Boxee. The current UI has the main menu items vertically stacked along the left side and each time you select them, the background of the screen changes. It's atrocious. All the skins look like they were put together for use on a monitor that sits about 2 feet from your face, not a TV screen, and they're all super busy. Everyone seems to want to throw up as much "fan art" as possible without ever taking the time to work out the basic principles of a good base interface.

I'm a UI snob though, so maybe it will appeal to some people. I don't think XBMC will appeal to the mass market however. Another thing they need to do is change the name of the project. The "XB" art of ye name is, among other things, a totally irrelevant concept.

I wonder what they charge for it? No mention of pricing on the vudu site.

-ml

$2 for a 2 night rental.

And $5.99 if you want a "HDX" rental.

Really? I thought the $2 *was* for HD. Though I see that Vudu calls HD HDX instead, because they apparently have some other stripped-down lower resolution stuff they currently call "HD."

Other than on some especially rare circumstance would I ever pay that kind of money ($6) for a streaming rental. At $2 I'd bite every now and then if the service were available in Canada. If it didn't come with surround sound, I'd pass completely.

Yeah. $6 for a rental is a bit steep. The $2 for 2 nights SD rental is only a special offer as well. I'm not sure whether its normally more or whether you only get it for 24 hours.

Bruno, I think that the $2 for 2 is a limited number of movies. There are some decent films in there, but some real stinkers that might not even make the Netflix streaming cut.

Their highest quality video is indeed $6 for a rental, but that's for the highest quality, which is, I believe, currently the highest quality HD video you can get over the web at the moment (legally). I think they offer other "HD" streams of varying levels. Say, the next step down is Apple HD, then the step below that is Netflix "HD," then I believe they have SD as well.

I'll verify this, though. The Boxee update came through this afternoon, and I quickly launched the vudu app to see if it was working (it is). Now I just need to set up my account.

I just checked out a sample vudu HDX video. I have to say, it's really freaking good for streaming. Easily the best, and I've seen pretty much all of them at this point.

There are fewer quality levels than I'd thought. There SD, 720p HD, and 1080p "HDX." I don't know how many of these have Dolby Digital 5.1, but at least the top two do, and it sounds great.

Clearly, much of the quality comes down to how compressed the video is. Well, naturally it appears they deliver whatever your bandwidth allows, up to the level you pay for, but it looks like their HDX videos start out at 4.5Mbps and go up to at least 9Mbps. I've attached a shot of the speed test that vudu goes through. In my setup, it instantly shot to 9Mbps and never dropped (thank you Fios). I'm also very pleased with the performance of my WD Livewire (as discussed earlier), as that's what is providing the connection to the Boxee Box.

Lastly, the prices are as follows:

SD - $3.99
HD - $4.99
HDX - $5.99

**edit** I forgot to mention, when you first sign up, the give you $5.99 in credits, so you get a free HDX movie **/edit**

I agree that $6 for a rental is very high, and I don't foresee spending that very often. However, my wife and I just spend $34 to see The Green Hornet in theaters. Yes, it was that expensive because it was in 3D, but guess what: at our theater it was ONLY SHOWING IN 3D! What the hell? Besides, non-3D would still have been $22. This is $6, we get to be nice and comfy in our living room with easily accessible bathrooms, food, and a pause button. We also don't have the three kids behind us without the concept of whispering, or the woman sitting right next to me checking her phone and texting every five minutes (that's the second time in a row that's happened to me).

For the convenience, $6 doesn't look that bad anymore. Plus, I think of it as a supplement to Netflix. There are some good older movies showing up for streaming there (including a documentary about The Minutemen I want to see), and with that combination I think I'll be going to the theater much less often.

In conclusion, once Boxee adds Netflix to the Box, I'll officially be happy and completely set. Everything else will just be gravy to me.

I'm suspecting that anything in a 16x9 format is getting called HD these days.

John Q. Public got taken to the cleaners when the HD standards were defined with the ability to degrade the bandwidth.

If you can't watch movies on Vudu at the same time as they're in theaters, then that point is sort of moot. If Vudu gets movies at the same time as they're available to everyone on DVD and BluRay, you can compare to renting at Blockbuster or buying the title outright.

If I could stream a movie on the day in opens in the theaters for $6 then I'd probably do that quite a few times over the course of the year.

I can buy a used DVD for $2, watch the movie and then sell it for $3. Profit of $1.

I've actually never seen this. Every time something is marketed as HD, it's at least 720p.

Now, there's certainly a question about how much compression different content providers use on their HD streams. That definitely varies. Although I'd still say even the worst is usually better than SD.


True, true. Though all those alternatives don't have the convenience of VOD. I can't get to all the movies I want to see in the theater anyway, so waiting isn't always a problem. Also, Blockbuster is dead, and Redbox has a terrible selection (and none of the ones around me rent blurays). Now that I think about it, I don't think I could go out right now and rent a bluray disc anywhere near me! That's weird to think...

And I could buy a $30 bluray, but not many people see "used bluray" and will pay you more than $6 less than the price you paid for it, so you're behind there too.


Are you really saying that's a better method? I really don't think that $1 is worth my time to make it. How do you go about selling these used DVDs?

Personally I'd rather just stream it. Like I said, when I average it out with my Netflix subscription, I don't feel like I'm spending too much.

Its not just suspiciously low bit rates for HD and no firm definition of what HD streamed content is. You also have issues with deinterlacing of content.

Here's what I was talking about when I said I didn't like XBMC's UI:

http://www.engadget.com/photos/xbmc-now-on-the-new-apple-tv/#3794728

IMO, it looks like trash.

Looks okay to me -- definitely has a positive WAF.