The Boxee Box Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Ganesh T S on November 23, 2010 5:42 PM EST- Posted in
- Gadgets
- Media Streamer
- HTPC
- Boxee Box
The Media Streaming Suite & File Compatibility
During the launch event for the Boxee Box in New York, Avner Ronen (CEO, Boxee) used our media streamer test suite on stage to demonstrate the extensive codec compatibility of the Boxee Box. After putting our review unit under the scanner, we realized that Boxee had indeed devoted efforts to ensure that they had the best compatibility score amongst media streamers. As the graph at the end of this section shows, the Boxee Box is bested only by HTPCs.
However, the high score in our media streamer test suite belies the fact that the Boxee Box had many issues with files it was supposed to play back without any problems. Before listing out the issues, let us look at the positive aspects:
1. High quality re-encoded non-DRM videos from non-streaming Internet sources play back without issues. Most commonly in the MKV or AVI format, with H264 / MPEG4 video and DTS / AC3 / AAC audio tracks, the Boxee Box is able to handle anything thrown at it in this department with aplomb.
2. Streams for which hardware acceleration is not supported (such as RMVB) are decoded on the host CPU (Atom)
3. MPEG-4 decoding has no problems with Q-Pel and Global Motion Compensation (GMC) with multiple warp points. This is one aspect with which streamers based on Sigma Designs and Realtek SoCs have problems.
Once we started testing out the common formats for personal backups (ISOs / M2TS), the issues started cropping up.
1. TrueHD audio is not bitstreamed to the AV receiver.
2. There are very minor stutter artifacts while decoding L5.1 1080p60 H264 clips
3. Stylized subtitles (ASS / SSA) are woefully bent out of shape and misplaced on the screen too. Karaoke subtitle effects are not rendered.
4. Video in WTV containers is not recognized (possibly due to lack of public knowledge about the structure of the container)
5. Bugs existing in ffmpeg are carried over to the Boxee Box. A couple of H.264 / AC3 M2TS clips for which the ffmpeg splitter doesn't work well (on HTPCs) have slight stuttering issues. Interestingly, none of the Realtek or Sigma Designs streamers (except for the WDTV lineup) have this problem. The WDTVs exhibit the same issue as the Boxee Box for these clips.
6. HD Theora videos playback audio only, as the video has too much resolution to be reliably decoded by the Atom host CPU without hardware acceleration. This issue applied to our 1080p RMVB file also.
7. MKV sample with H264 video and TrueHD audio, along with PGS subtitles, crashed the system completely after the streamer made an attempt to try to demux and decode all the applicable streams.
8. DTS-MA audio in MKVs have some audio dropout issues.
9. Some M2TS clips (both H.264 and MPEG-2 content) buffer a little, play a bit and go back to buffer some more, even though these clips are on a local USB drive connected to the unit. This process keeps on repeating causing stuttery playback.
10. Forced subtitles in MKVs are not handled properly. Subtitles being on by default is a major issue too, and that has ramifications in this scenario.
11. At least 1 MakeMKV created BR folder structure resets the Boxee Box back to the main screen.
12. The CE4100 SoC doesn't have MJPEG decode which is what many older cameras record video in.
The encouraging thing is that the Boxee developers have obtained samples from us for streams which are meant to be supported. We should hopefully see fixes soon.
With the firmware v 1.0.1.16125, the Boxee Box obtained a score of 286 out of a maximum possible 358. With a normalized score of 79.89%, it is comfortably ahead of streamers such as the WDTV Live Hub.
Think of the Boxee Box as a pre-configured HTPC. It almost reaches the compatibility levels of the Atom/ION ZBOX, perhaps losing out on some Windows specific formats. After codec compatibility, next up on the list is picture quality.
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sprockkets - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
Let's just say for instance, you don't use Windows and use Boxee since you can.$50 HDD
$30 for Ram
$42 for the cpu
$80 for a decent case with a fanless 65w psu or $50 case with $30 hq Seasonic psu
$140 for a motherboard. That's right, just a CPU won't cut it, it needs a decent chipset with hardware acceleration as well, and a Zotac 9300 itx board fills that need.
Figure $20 to ship and you get $362.
You still end up having to pay more, and you are left to assemble it. You get more, but $362 isn't $200, nor will it work OOTB.
Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - link
You dont need to be fanless. There are plenty of low cost cooling options available that are "silent enough" without having to pay a premium for fanless. However, I bet an underclocked, undervolted wolfdale celeron wouldnt even need a fan at all. Especially if you use something like a Q6600 stock heatsink. But even if it needed a fan it would only need to run at 500 rpm, which is pretty much inaudible.sprockkets - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - link
That system isn't fanless, just the PSU. In either case, finding a good mini-itx case with a hq ps is next to impossible, at $50.Like you said, the fan even on a dual core 2.5 ghz processor is quite silent, but the psu one is noticeable. Still, to compare apples to apples as much as possible, I compared it with a hardware accel. chipset, and those cost more.
azcoyote - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
Any chance you could test this with PlayOn.tv, particularly the HULU stream (no subscription required)???PlayOn.TV plus Netflix is how I got free of DirecTV.
Thanks!
schreinereiner - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
I actually have a Boxee Box and have been using it in conjunction with PlayOn from day one and am very happy with it so far. Have not had bigger issues so far mainly using Hulu, Comedy Central, and Netflix (inlieu of a native app for the Boxee Box which has been announced to be ready in the next 4-5 weeks before the end of the year).AmdInside - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
10 watts on standby? That's a deal breaker for me. For a device that I would leave connected all the time, that is too much standby power draw.JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
For a person with "AMDInside" as their name, that's a little ironic isn't it? I mean, we're talking $10 per year at average power pricing to have it plugged in and running 24/7.gigahertz20 - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
Well, so much for the Boxee Box hype, I think the next media streamer I get will be the new Popcorn Hour A-210. It's the same thing as the A-200 hardware wise I think, but the case is now aluminum and fanless, which were the main drawbacks for the A-200. I have owned a A-110 for over a year now and it has played back everything.I'd love to see Anandtech do a review of both the Popcorn Hour A-210 and the new Netgear NeoTV.
Also, the last page of the review has some spelling/grammar mistakes. Below:
"But parting iwth $199 for a product with bugs"
"You can’t build an similarly capable HTPC"
schreinereiner - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
My approach right now due to the generous return window on Amazon (at least in the US) for pre-Christmas purchases is to give it until early January and re-evaluate.I went through the early Sigma players, returned a PopBox, am still fiddling with an Acer Revo Xbmc setup and have to say that with all its shortcomings the Boxee Box is the closest anyone in my eyes has gotten to marrying on- and offline content successfully while maintaining the simplicity of a set-top box. The first firmware update to address some bugs is planned for likely the end of this week. It's already being beta-tested.
spambonk - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
" so if you want to truly save power you’ll have to shut the Boxee Box down completely."Do you chose the shutdown option, or pull the plug out of the socket?