Boxee for Windows

Boxee brings web video playback and social networking to a TV-connected PC. Awesome!

According to their company blog, the Windows alpha of Boxee (free, www.boxee.tv) should be public sometime in June (it's been in an Alpha testing period for several months). Boxee is a variant of XBMC—the media streaming and playback software originally designed for the Xbox 1 that now runs on all major platforms—designed with social networking in mind. In addition to many of the streaming and media management features that XBMC has, Boxee includes a friends list and the ability to pull web video from sites like CBS.com, Netflix.com, and CNN.com into the app’s sexy 10-foot interface, which makes it easy to browse with a remote control.In its current alpha state, Boxee can be a touch unstable; however, it’s so powerful and awesome that we’re willing to tolerate an occasional crash to use it.

But first you’ll need to install Windows. We’ve tested the Boxee Alpha with XP, Vista, and Windows 7 Beta 1. Boxee works great with XP and Vista (including 64-bit Vista) but has problems with Win7 due to the nascent OS’s poor OpenGL support. That may change by the time you read this, but for the time being, we don’t recommend Win7 for Boxee users.

After you’ve installed Windows, updated the OS, installed the Nvidia chipset drivers and AMD CPU drivers, changed your display settings to the native resolution for your monitor, and installed the Realtek drivers to enable sound, you should install Boxee. The installer is very straightforward, but there’s quite a bit you can do to optimize your experience after the initial install.

Once Boxee is installed, you’ll want to point it to your network shares. The easiest way to do that is to map a network drive, but you can also use Boxee’s built-in Samba client, as shown here.

First, you’ll want to calibrate Boxee’s video displays. From the home screen, go left and navigate down to Settings. Go to Appearance, then Screen. Make sure the resolution is set to your TV’s native resolution (1920x1080 for a 1080p set, 1280x720 for a 720p set), then click the Video Calibration option. This will walk you through a series of configuration options that will ensure your video is displayed at the proper aspect ratio for your set.

If you have media stored on your machine or network, you can add that content to the Boxee interface as well. In the Settings menu, go to Media Sources. While you can have Boxee connect directly to an SMB share, we recommend mapping a network drive in Windows, then accessing the media through that, as it seems more reliable. Drill down the menus in the Media Sources share and add your content. Boxee will begin indexing it and add it to your machine’s library.

And then there’s Hulu. Boxee was forced to pull Hulu from its service in February, and various workarounds have popped up since then to get Hulu streams working on Boxee. The latest update brings Hulu back to Boxee through enhanced RSS feeds, and the release of Hulu Desktop has given Boxee's creators hope that Hulu will come back to the program for good. For now, we still recommend watching your Hulu shows with Hulu's own desktop application. 

OS Alternative: What about Ubuntu?

We tested Boxee with Ubuntu as well and were pleasantly surprised. We had a bit of trouble getting audio configured properly on the Linux OS, but once that hurdle was passed, we had Boxee up and running in no time. The only caveat is that some online sources don’t work with the Linux edition of Boxee, so check our handy chart below to see what does and does not work.

A Boxee Tour

Boxee’s 10-foot interface is simple to understand, once you know the basic rules

• We love that Boxee includes the ability to play content direct from websites—support for individual sites varies by platform, but there’s a ton of great content available already, and more being added all the time.
• Although you can use a mouse with Boxee, the app is designed for navigation with a remote control. To navigate to the main system menu, where you can adjust settings or browse to any of the content accessible to the machine, just browse to the left side of any screen.
• Boxee, like XBMC, will pull down the relevant metadata for your TV shows and movies from the Internet so that you can browse your videos by genre, actor, director, and more.
• Want to view video that’s not supported by one of the default services? Does the site have an RSS feed? If so, plug it into My Feeds, and odds are you’ll be watching streamed video in no time.
• If you navigate beyond the right side of the screen, you’ll find Boxee’s context-sensitive menus (not pictured), where you can adjust things like view options and thumbnail size.
• If you ever find yourself losing touch with the real world, Boxee will even keep you updated on the current time and local weather. Now that’s convenience!

XBMC: An Entertainment Alternative

If you’re not as interested in streaming web video, XBMC delivers a kick-ass network streaming experience

While XBMC lacks the nifty web-based video playback and friends list that Boxee offers, it has a much more advanced streaming platform, especially if you have a large video library. It also offers support for a few streaming sites using plugins, but support for sites like Hulu is nowhere near as polished as it is was in Boxee. If you’re not looking to cut your cable, then XBMC is probably a superior choice for in-home streaming.

‌After you install the app (free, www.xbmc.org), you’ll need to configure your video settings using a procedure that’s very similar to Boxee’s. Simply go to Settings, then Appearance, then Screen, and run through the screen calibration process. Once that’s done, you should hit the audio settings and make sure the proper output is configured. The last thing you should do in your options menu is tell XBMC where your media is stored. As with Boxee, XBMC works better with network sources if you map your network path to a drive letter, then point XBMC to that drive rather than just using the integrated SMB client. You can also add RSS feeds for podcasts or pictures, or UPNP shares if you already have a streaming server set up on your network.

Once you have everything configured, XBMC will scan your content and download metadata associated with your videos. It can take a couple of hours if you have a large collection, but once it’s done, you can enable Library mode (using the default skin, it’s a left-column option in the Music and Video views). Library mode lets you browse your movie collection by genre, director, actor, year, or a number of other options. Library mode also works for your music collection and lets you browse by the contents of your ID3 tags. It’s very handy if you have a lot of movies and music.

Once you’ve got your media configured, you can also add other streaming sources for sites like Hulu. There are tons of plugins available, and the best place for streaming info is at the XBMC forums. Enjoy!

• When XBMC misidentifies a file, you can manually change it using the context menu. Don’t fret, though; in our 600-plus file collection, it managed to detect more than 90 percent of the files correctly.
• When you mouse over a file, you’ll see a small pop-up containing more info about the file. Click it, and you’ll see more-detailed info, including release date, actors involved, director, and a basic plot summary.
• Library mode is awesome; it lets you browse your movies and TV shows based on metadata, rather than title alone. Best of all, the app automatically downloads art for your films and TV shows!
• The only trick to automatic metadata collection is that you store different types of content in different folders. When you add a new folder, you can tell XBMC what type of content it contains (TV show, movie, music, photo, etc.), so it’s important that you connect the correct data sources to the correct types of content.