boxee

I am part of alpha testing for a new service called boxee. I became interested in boxee when I saw that it added extra functionality to my Apple TV. One of the reasons I wasn’t a fan of sites such as Hulu or CBS.com or other sites where networks allow you to watch streaming TV episodes, is you were tethered to your computer. I liked iTMS and Apple TV, so I could subscribe to the show and watch it on my television, commercial free. Boxee adds the functionality to have these sites accessible from your television through your Apple TV, and lets you navigate the interface and watch the television shows.

It was pretty painless to load boxee onto my Apple TV. I loaded some software onto a thumb drive and inserted the thumb drive into the back of the Apple TV. I rebooted the Apple TV, the software loaded, I rebooted again, and I had a couple new menu options on my Apple TV menu screen. The first thing I did was make sure the Apple TV still worked as it had before, which it did. Next I went to the update menu in the boxee section and updated the software. After this I gave it a try. Now, I have to remember this is alpha software, and they are hacking a closed, proprietary system, so it won’t be the most stable application. I have gotten it to run successfully a couple times, watched a couple episodes of Family Guy from Hulu; but it does freeze up with a blank screen a lot, and the only recourse is to reboot the Apple TV. I’ll be interested to see how this progresses.
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