Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living room

Re:Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living... by ComputerGuru on Thursday July 04, 2013 @11:57AM (#5991210)

For anyone actually looking for the ultimate HTPC, I've tried pretty much everything and the absolute best I've found is a combo of an Apple TV with Beamer.app [0] to play just about anything and everything with a great UI, awesome Netflix support, iTunes renting/buying, etc. etc. etc.

0: http://beamer-app.com/ (I'm not affiliated in any way, other than being a very satisfied customer that has had several feature requests fulfilled by the author)

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Re:Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living... by SippinLean on Thursday July 04, 2013 @12:30PM (#5991352)

Barebones box with intel atom, a bit of ram, and a small HDD is cheaper and does all that, and you don't have to deal with sidestepping Apple's odd file format restrictions. Throw XBMC on there and you're done, for about $150.

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Re:Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living... by ComputerGuru on Thursday July 04, 2013 @12:54PM (#5991461)

Apple TV is $99.

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Re:Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living... by rbanffy on Saturday July 06, 2013 @03:46PM (#5999823)

Good luck updating it after Apple decides you won't.

Don't get me wrong. AppleTV is certainly a decent value, but it'll never do anything Tim Cook disapproves.

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Re:Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living... by antr on Thursday July 04, 2013 @12:03PM (#5991238)

Never heard of Beamer, but I rarely stream/control video directly from the laptop. I've been using Air Video with both the iPad/iPhone (http://www.inmethod.com/air-video) + Drobo for media storage and it works like clockwork. I will still take a look at Beamer.

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Re:Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living... by yardie on Thursday July 04, 2013 @12:23PM (#5991323)

I bought this app 2 days ago. I have a video that plays perfectly fine on my laptop but on the Apple TV the video goes blank after 15 minutes. It was a choice between them and AirParrot. Although it was cheaper I didn't need the mirroring AirParrot provides.

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Re:Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living... by bkoehler on Thursday July 04, 2013 @12:54PM (#5991462)

From: http://beamer-app.com/ "Without a license, playback is limited to the first 15 minutes of each movie."

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Re:Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living... by freyr on Thursday July 04, 2013 @03:10PM (#5992041)

Why not just use Airplay? It's free and video that plays on your laptop can be mirrored onto your TV.

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Re:Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living... by rbanffy on Saturday July 06, 2013 @03:53PM (#5999847)

I'm seriously considering a Raspberry Pi or a cheap Android HDMI stick and run Netflix on it. Has anyone tried that?

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Re:Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living... by andybak on Thursday July 04, 2013 @12:07PM (#5991260)

I'm not familiar with Apple TV. Why is beamer necessary. Can the Apple TV not play video files from a network share?

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Re:Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living... by josteink on Thursday July 04, 2013 @12:09PM (#5991266)

No. It requires your files to be a format iTunes understands (which mostly limits it to stuff bought in the i-store) and in a iTunes media-library on a PC running on your network. Which for most non-Appleheads is pretty bad and for some (like me) even a no-go.

It could be worse though. In the olden days you had to synch the media to your Apple TV before being able to play it.

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Re:Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living... by rbanffy on Saturday July 06, 2013 @03:48PM (#5999826)

  sudo port install ffmpeg

You're welcome.

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Re:Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living... by segacontroller on Thursday July 04, 2013 @01:03PM (#5991501)

if you already have a Mac, why not just use airplay?

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Re:Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living... by WayneDB on Saturday July 06, 2013 @11:32AM (#5999102)

I just plug a cheap Windows laptop directly into my LCD TV.

That way I get more than just video. I can use the full operating system to do anything at all.

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