Tag: boxee

Google tv redefining TV? Not quite…

I totally missed Google TV and Google IO while I was in Hospital. It was one of the first things I asked for when I woke up, sad but true.

So my manager gave me a cut out about the Google IO event, which seemed to focus on Google TV and the next Android (still exploring). So generally if I was boxee I would be alarmed but not too concerned. They could really take advantage of the standards google’s using to power the remote for example. But lets not forget Google have a massive influence and moving into there area has to be worrysome. Now lets get this all in perspective.

This isn’t about Apple vs Google, its about the open internet vs the closed world of the TV. TV has been tightly controlled for years by the TV producers, etc. Now that wall is falling down.

Other people have written about the hardware and software so I won’t do that, instead I’ll look at the concept.

For a while now the BBC and its content producer partners have been working on spec for the next generation of Television viewing aka Project Canvas. When I first saw this I was surprised because it really lacked the internet and openness. I walked away thinking this is what a broadcast company would put out thinking about the notion of convergence of the web and tv. However this really did my head in because all the clever internet ideas of what Canvas could have been have been picked up Google and the google TV. Which is a shame for the BBC.

However, the weird thing is that although Canvas is what a broadcast company would do. GoogleTV is what a internet company would do if they wanted to converge the TV with the internet. However just thinking about the UK market for now, freeview has a major following and I can’t really see Google TV make much of a dent in that right now. I might be wrong but Google TV is very much a American thing and google haven’t really thought about the other markets as of yet.

So back to Google TV, there partners include Intel, logitech, Sony, bestbuy, dish network, Adobe, plus others. Note none of these are actually Content creaters/producers except of course Sony. The Sony side there talking to seem to be the engineering side rather than the content producing side. There was no deals or even talk about the content side of Sony. There will be a massive push in the states from Best Buy but details about the rest of the world is almost non exist.

Generally GoogleTV is once again interesting (and comes up open trumps here) because it can browse any website instead of the Canvas/XBMC/AppleTV model which is apps or scripts which allow you to access certain sites. There is a real opportunity to make TV aware sites like Youtube TV which was also announced at Google IO 2010. I’m actually very surprised no one has yet wrote a XBMC or Boxee script to take advantage of the new Youtube TV format. Generally this means your site can be viewed by millions and millions of people on there TV while they watch something else. But I wonder with no content producers on board will the likes of Hulu block GoogleTV or provide a crippled experience? In a ideal world I guess Google would suggest that everyone should use YouTube to deliver there content to the world, like channel 4 now do. And thats the killer thing, for everyone who uses youtube and other video sharing sites to distribute there media. Google are tackling the TV problem from both directions. Hardware, software and altering the code of the web.

Its opens the door to all the user generated media out there. TV producers must be somewhat rocking in there seats with a little bit of fear. Google have opened the door to the open web and have the might to keep it open. The problem is the price.

No one knows the price yet but the hardware is going to cost at least £50 or $50 which means its not going to get the penetration it requires. Its mainly going to be a glorified Tivo unless they can get the price down. Those who can afford the box have already got something like a Apple TV, XBMC or Boxee running. It won’t take much for them to adopt the open standards and emulate exactly what a google tv box does.

Theres also a problem when it comes to the social aspect of (or identity of the people watching) TV. Google TV already picks up the bluetooth of the phones of the people watching the TV (in the same room) but is that what you really want? Interestingly in the Google TV primer theres some hints of the problem.

Here are a few tips for those who haven’t designed for TV before. In a television environment, you must:

  • Understand that content is king.
  • Get users to the content as quickly and easily as possible.
  • Don’t interrupt when users are watching TV. Instead, make the viewing experience better.
  • Respect the living room context.
  • Think about what users will and won’t want to do when viewing TV with their family and friends.
  • Remember that TV is social.
  • Consider how groups might use your website or application.

Offer ways for individuals to use your site or apps in social settings.

  • Learn the pros and cons of TV screens and audio.
  • TV screens are wider and colors look different.
  • Text must be readable from a distance.
  • Sound is now a viable interface element.
  • Make it easy.
  • Offer simple choices and make actions obvious and easy to select.
  • Provide navigation that is simple enough for a remote control.

Thats only the start of the problem. Its great what Google has done but I can’t imagine what developed applications made for a phone will be like on a TV. Its goes back a little bit to what I said about the Apple TV.

The Living room is a funny place filled with different people and different exceptions. Google really needs to reach out to the content creation community and listen to what they say. Right now Google TV looks like something a Internet company who don’t fully get the dynamics of the TV/living room would build. Fantastic they have taken the standards route and pushed openness as far as it can go into the living room but now its time to consider the content and the experience. Or at least get some partners who do understand the content and experience. If they don’t I can see the Hulu problem growing and it may cause even more paywalls like the current newspaper situation.

Apple’s threat on screen based home entertainment

Everyone is talking about the ipad but isn’t it time the Apple TV was due an upgrade? Rather than leave the apple tv out to dry, I’m certain Apple will want to tie it into there already closed ecosystem (I mean rainforrest). That will mean developer written applications for your Television, something which other platforms like Boxee have been use to for some time.

I personally can’t see the attraction of writing applications for your TV but I’m sure with decent content some will be on to a winner. Rather than the widget like systems being thrown around now, content producers could build content and systems which work hand in hand. So a real simple example would be a Diggnation or Diggreel would give you the real time digg amounts with the option to further digg a story or add a comment.

Another reason why I think Apple will go down this route is because this will be Apple’s entry into the home console market. They have already announced there going to be creating there own gaming network (like Xbox Live or XLink Kai) so why not extend that out to your TV too? So not only will have your music, videos and books all within the Apple Universe but also your game playing too. Is there going to be anything which Apple won’t hold in their Rainforrest?

To be fair if Apple do launch a new AppleTV by the 3rd quarter, they may catch Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo napping. But the real forward thinking is being done by the likes of Boxee who have adopted the open wide model with a revenue model. If Boxee can get on to other platforms and spread quickly, who knows what might happen. I got to hope the most open will finally attract the talented developers, everything else is in place.

So where does this leave things like GoogleTV, Android and Canvas? Who knows…

Fianlly had a feel for the Boxee Remote and its excellent

The Boxee remote

I had the chance to play with the all new Boxee Remote and I was very impressed. It feels so light (it may or may not have had batteries in it) but solid enough to take some abuse like people sitting on it and being dropped off sofa edges on to stone floors. The top edge with the navigation is very mac like with the basic amount of controls to do most things. But then if you roll over the remote your greeted by a full qwerty keyboard. The keyboard is lower that the edges so even when lying flat the buttons don’t touch. Being all RF is good because the keyboard is very usable when not facing the screen. Although the remote is a good size I do wish it was a little thicker. I’ll be buying one for my xbmc setup as soon as there available.

The Media Player war just got hotter

To be honest when ever I see my friends Popcorn Hour box, I can’t help but laugh a little. The interface to the Popcorn Hour Box is just hellish and although it does technically provide a experience close to XBMC and others, it was never a real runner. It always felt like it had been beaten with a truly ugly stick then left out to die. Even the name Popcorn Hour Media Tank, conjured ideas of something ugly as sin.

Well finally the design message has gotten through and Popcorn Hour has now spawned off the PopBox, which actually to me looks like a direct rip from Boxee Alpha to tell the truth, but looks far better than its previous outings.

The Popbox also now supports Apps (is there anyone who doesn’t) But instead of adopting someone elses approach, they have decided to build there own platform called DAVID. Hummm, sounds like a bad idea personally. Anyway the Popbox is going to be closer to 100 dollars that Boxee Box which is 200 dollars.

How ever thats not where it ends. I heard today that not only is the Boxee box coming out in maybe March but also you can buy the RF remote by its self. Which means someone like myself who has a custom box running boxee or xbmc can also benefit from the slick Boxee remote.

Nice you say, but there more. Up till now theres been this category of media players who just do streaming and nothing else. Roku is one and a popular other is Vudu. You connect them up and pay a subscription for like a VOD experience over your internet. Well Boxee just announced support for paid content. If content producers can make this revenue model work, it would be great. I do wonder however if that means we’ll see DRM content in Boxee soon? Really hope not…

Boxee is now my mediaplayer while at work

Boxee on the desktop

I’ve been playing with the beta version of Boxee and I’m more and more enjoying it. During work, its got the perfect interface for playing back tunes but I also discover I could also connect to my shares at home easily using Hamachi VPN. Simply pop in the ip address of your remote machine and thats it. Because Hamachi uses a 5.x.x.x address, Boxee connects and the locally running Hamachi takes over the connection. Not only that, because Hamachi’s central server is only used to connect the two points, all traffic is routed as directly as possible. Aka the lag time I’m getting is super low due to the 1meg upstream link at home and super fast connection at work. Fast enough to even play some of films if I really wanted to. I also suspect when away off site I can use my 3g/HSDPA connection to do the same with no changes to Hamachi or Boxee.

Boxee with Hamachi VPN

I know a lot of people don’t like Hamachi but to be fair I run it on almost every machine I own and enjoy how simple it makes VPN and tunneling. I’ve still had no luck with L2L: layer two but yet to try Wippen which I hear is the truly open version of Hamachi.

I could use XBMC to do the same but I actually prefer boxee’s interface for my laptop and xbmc’s for large displays. Also the social features in Boxee means if I quickly hear a tune I like or something, within a few clicks its shared and i’m back to work again. Now if only mix podcasts came with tracks…

XBMC joins Boxee on hardware

XBMC 9.11: Beta2 Confluence

I’m already impressed with the Boxee DLink box specially after finding out that the machine has a Tegra 2 chip which means it will play anything and almost everything including Flash 10.1 and heavy weight h.264 content at 1080p resolution. But I also see XBMC is on the NUU player which was recently announced at CES 2010.

But interestingly enough you don’t need to invest in a new hardware box to get the best performance out of XBMC or even Boxee. I already talked about the amazing performance I’m getting out of the Intel X300 graphics processor unit along side a dual core processor. However theres some more great news from the XBMC camp in the form of Broadcom Crystal HD Hardware Decoder (BCM970012) which is a decoder card which can be put in Express card slots.

Through hard work and the joint efforts of several TeamXBMC/Redhat developers and the Broadcom Media PC Group, cross-platform hardware decoding of mpeg2, h.264 and VC1 video content up to 1080p will be coming to XBMC on OSX, Linux, and Windows via the Broadcom Crystal HD Hardware Decoder (BCM970012). The Broadcom Crystal HD is available now in a mini-PCIE card with ExpressCard and 1X PCIE form factors to follow. This means that the AppleTV and all those lovely new netbooks, Eee Boxes and older Intel Mac Minis have exciting new potential.

This solution has a common programming API, so many 3rd party developers and applications will be able to leverage hardware accelerated video content playback across OSX, Linux, and Windows platforms with minimal source code changes. Best of all, this is an open source solution with full source code for driver and library available for OSX and Linux under a GPL/LGPL license. Wow, this indeed is the Holy Grail and a major score for the open source community as this means no more tainted Linux kernels! Support has already been added to XBMC under the svn trunk.

More information can be found under the blog post under XBMC.org, but it certainly looks like 2010 is going to be the year when XBMC, Boxee and Plex really shine through. I’m actually planning to build a XBMC system just for work, maybe I’ll stick Boxee on it too.

Oh and good on Bytemark for sponsoring XBMC.