Internet-to-TV video service, Boxee, has been available as a free software download for a while now, but the company has been working with hardware partner D-Link on a dedicated hardware box for the better part of a year.
The Boxee platform in and of itself grabs stream-able video from all over the web—YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, CNN, ABC, etc.—and serves it up in a TV-friendly interface that can be controlled with a mouse and keyboard or various compatible remote controls. The software is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and current Apple TV boxes (not the one due out in November).
The Boxee Box, as it’s called, aims to provide Boxee users with a simple, integrated set-top box that can be hooked up to a standard TV and controlled with a remote featuring a built-in QWERTY keyboard. Boxee just announced that the Boxee Box will be available for pre-order at Amazon.com for $200, with shipping set to begin in November.
Boxee’s main selling point is that it aims to pull in as much content from as many places as possible while presenting it all in a visually appealing interface. It actually does quite a nice job—I use it on a few of my computers from time to time. Take it for a spin if you get a chance. It’s free.
The Boxee Box will face competition from Google TV and Apple TV when it launches this November. The $200 price tag, especially, may scare some people away. The upside, however, is that the amount of content available via Boxee is about as lengthy as it gets, the box is capable of pushing out 1080p video, and the remote control will make searching for things easy.
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