Smart Home Blog

Next step after releasing of Boxee Box Boxee is going to offer a paid content to their users this Summer. There is a big number of comments about that topic on the Boxee blog. Many people like it on conditions that the payment will be monthly/yearly for unlimited access to the channel or bundle of channels. The most difficult part of that task is finding providers with interesting content. Wish good luck to Boxee team with that and wait for Boxee Box.

Another networked player contains popular HTPC software Boxee. NUU player demonstrated at CES 2010, is based on Atom CPU and probably Intel graphics. It sports 160GB HDD, HDMI, DVI, a few USB and one Ethernet ports. There is no info about WiFi adaptor but the player includes Bluetooth module. So, the wireless headset can be attached there.

Except Boxee, the NUU player offers XBMC and Skype applications. That’s really interesting cause you may no only watch video from sofa but make also Skype calls using Bluetooth headset without standing up.

The price of the NUU player is a bit more expensive then upcoming D-Link Boxee Box – $300 (Boxee Box is just $200). The date of availability is not set yet. The demo video after jump.
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When Boxee announced its own box designed by D-Link I suspected that it should be based on nVidia Ion as a compact and the most reliable to Linux platform. I was wrong but just a little bit. The Boxee Box will use mobile nVidia platform Tegra 2. Together with a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU it should bring 1080p video to your HDTV. Except that Boxee Box will be able playback of flash HD content.

Other hardware components are RF chip by Nordic for remote control and 802.11N wireless chip by Broadcom. The box won’t have internal HDD to decrease its cost, keep it compact and chill. Many people already have USB HDDs or NASes. So, internal hard drive inside the media player is no needed. The boxee box will lack IR receiver. Sure universal remote control is good. But remote with a full QWERTY keyboard is better. In any case, Boxee team promise to add support of IR dongles in the future.

And the finally about the price and availability. Boxee Box from D-Link will be available this March at $200.

As you may see on the picture the Boxee Box remote control will include QWERTY keyboard. The initial design was simple and clean like 6-button AppleTV remote. But to give users more handy and rich way to control their Boxee Box designers decided to add keyboard on the bottom of remote. It’ll be nice but I think keys can be pressed accidentally if there won’t some block. Maybe slide form-factor

Today is benefit performance of Boxee. Together with new Beta, announced in Brooklyn last night, the information about official Boxee Box was published on the Boxee website. It’ll be Dlink DSM-380! The small device (just 120mm x 120mm x 120mm) with strange design should occupy the place near your TV. There is no hardware spec yet. But I suppose that it’ll use nVidia Ion platform (maybe second generation). There are not do many port and interfaces. Just HDMI, optical S/PDIF and Composite audio, Ethernet, 2 USB ports and SD card reader. Additionally the DSM-380 is equiped with WiFi adapter and RF remote control which looks like Apple remote.

The DSM-380 should be available in the second quarter of 2010 for about $200. If so, it might be good opportunity to get advanced media player. Because the price of its nearest competitor Myka starts from $379 but it includes optical drive.

Regarding the design of DSM-380. Sure the Boxee and DLink know better how their device should look like. But personally I prefer something more practical like AppleTV or ASUS EEE Desktop, which can fit any A/V stand or be mounted behind TV.