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Boxee Box

Boxee Box and remote
Developer	Boxee
Manufacturer	D-Link
Type	set top box
Release date	November 10, 2010 (2010-11-10)
Introductory price	US$ 199
Discontinued	October 16, 2012 (2012-10-16)
Operating system	Linux
CPU	Intel CE4100 SoC
Storage capacity	1 GB NAND flash memory
Memory	1 GB RAM
Display	1080p
Graphics	PowerVR SGX535
Sound	Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS
Controller input	D-Link Boxee Box Remote DSM-22
Connectivity	Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n) 2.4GHz only 10/100 Ethernet HDMI S/PDIF 2 × USB RCA connector SD card slot
Online services	Boxee
Website	www.dlink.com/boxee/

Boxee Box by D-Link (officially "D-Link Boxee Box DSM-380") is a Linux-based set-top device and media extender that first began shipping in 33 countries worldwide on 10 November 2010.^[1][2] Designed to easily bring Internet television and other video to the television via Boxee's software, it comes pre-installed with Boxee media center software. The hardware is based on the Intel CE4110 system-on-a-chip platform (that has a 1.2 GHz Intel Atom CPU with a PowerVR SGX535 integrated graphics processor), 1 GB of RAM, and 1 GB of NAND Flash Memory.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]} The DM-380 features an HDMI port (version 1.3), optical digital audio (S/PDIF) out, an RCA connector for analog stereo audio, two USB ports, an SD card slot, wired 100 Mbit/s (100BASE-T) ethernet, and built-in 2.4 GHz 802.11n WiFi. The Live TV dongle, which started shipping in February 2012, enables users to watch digital OTA or Clear QAM cable television channels with EPG. Boxee is also looking into adding DVR functionality to the box as well, using their new cloud-based video sharing platform Cloudee.

The Boxee Box also ships with a small two-sided RF remote control with four-way D-pad navigation and a full QWERTY keypad as standard. This remote is also being sold separately with a USB receiver as "D-Link Boxee Box Remote DSM-22" that can be used with Boxee installed on a computer (so that one can use this remote without owning D-Link's Boxee Box).^{[10][11][12][13]} The look of both the case and remote prototypes for the Boxee Box was designed by San Francisco-based Astro Studios, the designer of the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Zune.^[14][15]

As of 16th October 2012, the Boxee team have announced that they intend to discontinue distribution, and will not be releasing any additional major updates.^[16]

Reception [edit]

There have been complaints regarding the Boxee Box by D-Link in several aspects. ^[17] As of the current version it does not provide support for Hulu or Hulu Plus subscription. Also that the Boxee Box software / firmware is not production ready but rather behaves like an Alpha or Beta version, especially when compared to the older desktop version of Boxee which can be freely downloaded and installed on commodity PCs. This viewpoint is furthered by the user interface development changes that took place between the beta version and the version 1.0 software shipped with the Boxee Box, with very little public user testing or input. These interface changes place greater emphasis on streaming content versus local downloaded content. Coupled with the removal of the BitTorrent client that was present in the beta version, these changes have led users to believe there is an active shift towards subscription/pay content.^[18] As well, there are allegations from the open source community that D-Link has gone the way of tivoization on the Boxee Box on purpose, implementing hardware restrictions to prevent users from running modified versions of the software on the D-Link hardware, and these restrictions raise questions about whether they are allowed under the licenses of dependent software used by the Boxee Box, including Boxee, XBMC, and the Linux operating system.^{[19][20][21][22][23][24]}
On October 31, 2012, Boxee posted a statement on their website that they had to make a decision between releasing a box that was hackable and one that was commercially viable with premium content.
As it stated, Boxee would have loved for the Boxee Box to be open to other software, but in the end they were bound by agreements with their content providers to ensure the security of the content. This started postings of very negative comments from Boxee Box users on the Boxee blog as the previous Boxee promises had been totally different.
After less than a day, the entire Boxee page (along with the statement, the blog and its comments) was removed and replaced with a new Boxee TV website. The old Boxee blog was not deleted but moved.^[25]

See also [edit]

• Boxee
• D-Link
• Comparison of set-top boxes

References [edit]