First look: boxee

Recently I presented the steps for hacking an Apple TV so that it could use boxee (yes, that's small-b-boxee), the open-source media center application that allows that Apple TV to stream content from such sources as Comedy Central, Hulu, BBC, Last.fm, SHOUTcast, Flickr, and PicasaWeb to an Apple TV or computer. But what of boxee itself and its implementation on the Mac? That's for today.

The big idea

The giant minds behind boxee describe it as a social media center. Using boxee you can play unprotected videos and music and view images that are stored on your computer's hard drive or on devices on your local area network. Additionally, you can enjoy content from Internet sources such as Hulu, SHOUTcase, and Flickr. The "social" component is the friends you add (and who add you). Friends can see what they're watching and listening to, with the idea that if your buddy Marty had the good sense to watch the latest episode of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, maybe you should too.

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Recently I presented the steps for hacking an Apple TV so that it could use boxee (yes, that's small-b-boxee), the open-source media center application that allows that Apple TV to stream content from such sources as Comedy Central, Hulu, BBC, Last.fm, SHOUTcast, Flickr, and PicasaWeb to an Apple TV or computer. But what of boxee itself and its implementation on the Mac? That's for today.

The big idea

The giant minds behind boxee describe it as a social media center. Using boxee you can play unprotected videos and music and view images that are stored on your computer's hard drive or on devices on your local area network. Additionally, you can enjoy content from Internet sources such as Hulu, SHOUTcase, and Flickr. The "social" component is the friends you add (and who add you). Friends can see what they're watching and listening to, with the idea that if your buddy Marty had the good sense to watch the latest episode of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, maybe you should too.

boxee is based on XBMC, an open-source media player with versions available for Mac, Linux, Windows, and Xbox.

Getting

In order to use boxee, you need an invite. And you can get that invite in one of two ways. You can visit boxee and sign up for an invitation. As of today, that invitation will be slow in coming as there are loads of people who'd like access to boxee and the service is weeding through endless requests. The other way is to find someone who has a boxee account and ask them for an invitation. Currently, there's no limit to the number of people someone with an active account can invite.

Once you have that invitation you can download the boxee application. Versions are available for the Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Navigating

boxee is designed with TVs and their remotes in mind. Although the Mac boxee application works perfectly well with a mouse and keyboard, you can be forgiven if you instead use an Apple Remote if one came with your iMac or laptop, or use the keyboard's arrow, Return, and Escape keys to navigate around the interface. It lends itself to that kind of control.

The interface bears seven entries along the left side--Video, Music, Pictures, Profile, Downloads, Settings, and Exit. The local temperature and time are displayed in the bottom left corner.

When you select Video you'll see options for Movies, TV Shows, Internet, and Sources. Select Movies and you'll see movies you access locally--either on your hard drive or local network. TV shows, same idea. Select Internet and you have access to streaming content via CBS, CNN, Comedy Central, Hulu, Movie Trailers, RSS feeds you've added, MySpaceTV, Next New Networks,. On Networks, Public Torrents, Revision3, and YouTube.

Sources is where you add locations that you've stored media. For example, if your iTunes library is stored on an external drive, you'll want to add that source so that boxee can find it.

The Music entry works similarly. You can view local music by artist or album. Select Internet and you can get audio content via BBC, Jamendo, Last.fm, RSS feed, or SHOUTcast.

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