Boxee Box gets official & new QWERTY remote revealed
D-Link and Boxee have officially announced their Boxee Box at CES 2010, the set-top box that will deliver streaming media in a more plug-and-play than traditional Boxee installs. What the press release doesn't mention, however, is the clever new remote they've developed, which has a full QWERTY keyboard for easy text-entry.
On one side of the remote there's a standard D-pad with enter, menu and play/pause buttons, like you would find on an Apple remote. However on the flip side there's a QWERTY thumb-board, useful for web searches, quickly navigating media libraries and more.
As for the Boxee Box itself, if will come in under $200 and offer vast media codec support. That includes DivX, Xvid, Flash 10.1, VC-1, H.264 and more; the full list is at the bottom of the press release, below. There's also the company's app platform, which offers widgets for Flickr, Pandora, Last.fm and other online services. We're still expecting the Boxee Box to arrive in Q2 2010.
Press Release:
D-LINK DEBUTS BOXEE BOX AT CES 2010; DIRECTLY LINKS INTERNET ENTERTAINMENT SERVICES TO TVs EVERYWHERENetworking pioneer and popular entertainment software
create the best way to get the free entertainment the Internet has to offer with no monthly fee
LAS VEGAS, CES Booth 36232, South Hall, LVCC, Jan. 5, 2010 – D-Link made lots of geeks and early adopters happy today by introducing the revolutionary Boxee Box by D-Link, winner of the CES Best of Innovations award in the Home Entertainment category.
The Boxee Box by D-Link reinterprets what TV should be. The Boxee Box delivers movies, TV shows, music, and photos from a user's computer, home network, and the Internet to their HDTV with no PC needed. Additionally, Boxee's core social features make it easy for friends to discover new content from each other through social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and more.
Internet Entertainment
Boxee is a popular PC, Mac, and Linux software program that lets users watch hundreds of thousands of popular TV shows and movies. Instead of sifting through millions of confusing Web sites, when users search on Boxee, TV shows and movies are delivered to them with the click of a remote control. Nearly a million Internet users around the world have already downloaded Boxee to enjoy their online entertainment.
The Boxee Box by D-Link takes the same popular software and offers it up as a great device — the perfect companion to a high definition TV. The Boxee Box by D-Link provides access to more than just traditional TV content. It includes a huge library that spans the Internet, such as university courses, panel discussions, academic lectures, presentations, web-only videos and more from TED, Stanford, FORA.tv, Kid Mango, Next New Networks and others. Boxee also makes it easy for users to add their own favorite entertainment sources with simple RSS or XML feeds available for most online video.
In addition to video content, Boxee users can access great music from sites like Pandora, last.fm, shoutcast, and We are Hunted as well as stunning photos from sites like flickr, Picasa and Facebook.
Personal Entertainment
For entertainment lovers who have built their own collections of digital media stored on their computer hard drive or home network, Boxee automatically identifies their content and downloads relevant cover art, synopses, reviews, subtitles, lyrics and more. This feature turns boring files and folders into beautiful media libraries that make it simple and appealing to navigate a collection of favorite movies, TV shows, and playlists with a simple remote. Furthermore, the Boxee Box by D-Link has extensive format support (see below) which ensures that when users hit the play button, they get instant gratification, with no need to download codecs or drivers. Also, with built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi support, it can transfer files without delay and from longer distances within a user's home.
Social Features
The Boxee Box by D-Link keeps people connected with social features to help users discover new content from friends, experts, and tastemakers.
The first step to discovery is sharing, and Boxee makes this easy by letting people recommend any playing content to friends. Additionally Boxee automatically uses recommendations from a user's Twitter and Facebook friends so they can find new content and instantly enjoy it on the big screen. Since anyone can build on top of Boxee's open App platform, users can craft their own truly custom experience by creating or downloading plug-ins, add-ons, games, and more.
"We are pleased to partner with Boxee and to be the first with such a ground-breaking device," said Nick Tidd, vice president of sales of D-Link Pan America and vice president of marketing for D-Link North America. "This powerful device with its unique form factor truly leverages Boxee's service and is the best way for consumers to quickly access the growing volume of Internet content, organize it and stream it to their TVs and home entertainment centers."
"D-Link's successful track record in bringing to market, award-winning digital home networking products, and its global marketing, distribution and channel sales capabilities made them a great fit for our first hardware vendor." stated Andrew Kippen, vice president of marketing for Boxee, "The Boxee Box by D-Link gives consumers what they want – an easy way to watch Internet or personal entertainment in their living rooms with a simple set-top box that costs under $200 and has no monthly fees."
The Boxee Box by D-Link is scheduled to ship in the first half of 2010 through the company's vast network of retail and e-tail outlets, and at D-Link's online store, www.dlinkshop.com.
Supported Codecs & Formats
Boxee can be used to play/view practically all common multimedia formats, including:
VIDEO:
Adobe Flash 10.1
H.264 (MKV, MOV)
VC-1
WMV
MPEG-1
MPEG-2
MPEG-4
AVI
Xvid
Divx
PCM/LPCM
VOB
AUDIO:
MP3
WMA
WAV
AIFF
FLAC
AAC
DTS
Dolby Digital
Ogg Vorbis
PHOTO:
JPEG
TIFF
BMP
PNG