Vudu HD Movies come to Boxee!

Thats right, Boxee does it again!  Today, the Boxee Blog announced that they are adding Vudu's huge collection of on-demand, new release movie titles to Boxee users on Mac, PC, and the forthcoming Boxee Box (amazon.com preorders set to ship Nov 10th)


New Vudu users who signup via Boxee will even get a free movie to try it out.  Count me in.

Movies are $2.00 each for a 2 night rental.  Combine this with the huge library of free content already available, and NetFlix streaming titles at $9.00 per month and you've got better-than-cable choices for a fraction of the cost.

Users of the free Boxee software on PC and Mac will only get SD, but with the Boxee Box, users can get up to 1080p in Dolby Digital 5.1 (depending on your bandwidth):

• SD (480p) requires 1 Mbps
• HD (720p) requires 2.25 Mbps
• HDX (1080p) requires 4.5 Mbps

I know what I'm doing this weekend -- signing up for Vudu and watching a free movie on Boxee!

New AppleTV Ships (Thanks, but no thanks)

I'm actually surprised at the small number of folks bragging and tweeting about their AppleTV's arriving late this week.

It has started shipping and folks have started unwrapping them, but the most exciting news seems to be that you can backup the Apple SHSH with TinyUmbrella (the tool that allows you to revert back to an older iOS firmware after Apple stops officially allowing you to do so).  This probably means the device will eventually be jailbroken, and at that point, it may have some interesting and useful purpose to me.

Why "Thanks, but no thanks"?  For starters, the closed ecosystem of the device.  You can stream your local content to it, however, the only other source of content is Netflix and the iTunes store (for $0.99 per show or $3.99 per movie).

Sure, $99 is cheap, but it I had to pay a buck every time my kids watched a SpongeBob episode I'd be broke!  Why would I do that, when the content I want to stream is already available for free (as advertiser supported content) over at Hulu and other similar sites.  No streaming of NHL GameCenter Live + no MBL.com + no Hulu = no thanks (for me).

Maybe as a jailbroken device it will have a better justification for a place in my entertainment system.

Let us know what you think:

Can AppleTV do anything that we can't already do?
Does it do any of it better?

PlayON iPhone App in the App Store

PlayON.tv now has their app available in the Apple iPhone App Store! (app store link) (itunes link)

Starting today iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users can download the free PlayON Mobile app to their device.  This allows you to have nearly any streaming web content available in the palm of your hand from sources such as Hulu, MLB, NHL, Netflix, Amazon VOD, CBS, Comedy Central, TV.com, ESPN.com, ESPN3, CNN, PBS, PBS Kids, Fox News, SpikeTV, MTV and Vevo.  

Thats right, Hulu.com on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch without having to subscribe to HuluPlus.

The software requires the PlayON software for Windows running on a PC on your network (tdownload a free trial from PlayOn.tv -- after the trial users can subscribe to PlayON for $39 for the first year and $19 for each year thereafter).  Well worth it for giving us all this content on our iDevices, XBox360's, PS3's, Wii's, and any other DLNA compliant playback device.

So far the app looks good and is quite speedy (even compared to the previous HTML5 web interface on iDevices) and best of all, it works over WiFi or 3G.

Way to go PlayON!  Keep up the good work!

NHL GameCenter App Coming to the iPad!

I recently wrote an article about how you can get NHL, Hulu, and many other video sources on your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad (plus your XBox360, PS3, and Wii) using PlayOn.  

Now, it looks like the NHL GameCenter folks have big plans of their own.  Many have noticed and asked about the "New: Connected Devices" feature shown on the NHL GameCenter sign-up screen.  While the NHL folks have been silent on this issue, I recently learned first-hand from the good folks at NHL GameCenter that they are in fact planning GameCenter Live support for the following "Connected Devices":

Playstation 3, iPad, Boxee, Roku, and Sony Bravia web-enabled HDTVs and Blu-Ray players. 

VLC now on iPad, Napster on iPad/iPod/iPhone

2 great headlines for iPad, iPod, and iPhone media hounds.

In the video department, the renowned VLC video player is available on the iPad for free from the Apple App Store!  This release was made possible by Applidium (and the newly published App Store Rules).  I don't have an iPad to test this one out, but maybe an avid reader of the blog can try it out for us and tell us all about it (@Samboni!?).  My first question: Will it play VOB files with menus?  It does look like it relies upon features currently specific to the iPad allowing it to get files from your computer during the sync process.  It also looks like HP is using a similar file sync method on its iPod and iPhone printer tool under iOS 4 so we may see VLC on our other iDevices soon.

In the music department, the infamous Napster released their app for iPod, iPhone and iPad today at the Apple App Store.  Users get a free trial (with the condition of signing up with a credit card -- beware, if you don't cancel you automatically start your $10 per month subscription).  I'll take the plunge on this during the free trial, but once you add up all of the recurring fee subscriptions I want (NHL GameCenter, Netflix, and now Napster), I need to start deciding which ones are worth it.  I'll update this post with my experience during my trial period.

Boxee Box about the size of a Coke Can!

Wow -- I've seen people posting concerns about the odd shape of the Boxee Box, then I saw how big it really is.

According to the Boxee Blog:


“Rest assured the Boxee Box will fit into your entertainment center. If the look doesn’t quite fit with your decor, not to worry. The RF remote means you can place the box out of sight and still control it. Of course, the Boxee Box prefers being on top.”


You could fit this thing anywhere!  And it really only needs 2 wires -- the power and the HDMI (since it has WiFi the network can be wireless or wired although clearly in this photo they show it with a wired network connection and all of the audio connectors in use).  Even fully loaded with all of its connections, you've got lots of options on where to put it.  And since it comes with an RF remote, you can choose to hide it or show it off (and make the SD slot even easier to access).


Read more about the Boxee Box and its new features (vs the beta) in my other articles or pre-order one from Amazon.com today!  I can't wait to get mine!

Streaming Video Anywhere with TVersity or PlayON

We've cut the cord on the cable/satellite and using Boxee on the main TV to watch Hulu, Netflix, MLB baseball games, NHL hockey games, and just about anything else available online, on the big-screen TV.  So what about the other 3 TV's?  Sure, free over-the-air HD is fine for network shows, but what if we want to watch Psych in the Den (there's no computer attached there but there is an XBox360).  What if the kids want to watch the newest Deadliest Catch on their iPod Touch?

In the near future, all the TV's in my house will have their own Boxee Box but until then how do we get more than 3-4 "local" networks?

There is a solution (actually a few, but, this article will focus on the option I chose to solve everything for multiple devices in my house).

How Will This Work?

It all hinges upon getting the content into your home from the internet either via Hulu, Netflix, or a download from uTorrent; then getting it to your PS3, XBox360 or iOS devices like iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch.  So how does one accomplish this?