boxee mulls production of its own set-top-box

boxee took full advantage of its space at CES this year, and according to a recent post on its blog, it fielded quite a few inquiries from other companies about crafting a boxee-branded set-top-box. Currently, the only way to get boxee running is to install it on your TV-connected PC or inelegantly onto an Apple TV. A number of companies approached boxee asking for its thoughts on embedding the application into "existing or future products," so the cats at boxee are coming right out and soliciting your opinion on the matter. boxee does caution that getting it baked into a device would take "a long time," but it certainly seems like that ball is rolling. So, what say you? Would you snap one up? Or would you balk at the notion of adding yet another STB underneath your television?

[Thanks, cros13]

[hodedofome Posted Jan 22nd 2009 9:32AM]

How about getting it to work on the 360/PS3/Wii without having to hack any of them.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 22nd 2009 10:43AM]

I agree. boxee sounds like a software company to me, so why would they want to get into the hardware business? They should continue to integrate on to the Apple TV platform, 360/PS3/Wii, and other existing hardware. Sounds like a great product and can't wait to load it on to my Mac Mini.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 22nd 2009 3:30PM]

Agree! Don't want another box, except... this COULD replace a lot of folks cable boxes. Shedding the cable companies POS box (and the monthly bill!) would cause a lot of folks to make room for new gear.

[andyg8180 Posted Jan 22nd 2009 9:42AM]

How about just making a tiny HTPC to compete with the mac-mini... But in windows 7 format... Mostly so you can still burn your movies and watch them on that sexy little box...

[oppizzippo Posted Jan 22nd 2009 11:05AM]

I vote YES. We need something to compete with the @TV. It needs to fully support Linux, Windows, and Apple users. The end all of internet media streamers.

C

[h0mi Posted Jan 22nd 2009 11:17AM]

I'm not really in favor of the "yet another stb" ideas that we keep seeing but a Boxee STB would be different and would be welcome. But support in the 360/ps3 would be far, far better, though it'd probably mean that the consoles would need to support NTFS or ExFAT.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 22nd 2009 12:52PM]

Embed a Bluray Player, internal HDD with NAS functionality and Boxee as the UI to play Bluray, online, and downloaded content. Heck Yeah! I'll buy 2!!!!

[DeadPenguin Posted Jan 24th 2009 12:21PM]

Add easy podcast subscribe/DL to that list and I'd buy 3.

[Dalhectar Posted Jan 22nd 2009 5:53PM]

It should have a hard drive, and support even more formats (as many or more than the current Popcorn Hour). But I'll vote yes, because it can become the environment that makes DNLA palatable.

[reallynotnick Posted Jan 22nd 2009 7:31PM]

I would be really interested in buying a nice box to run boxee and all my media. The Apple TV is a nice box but does not have the muscle to run all of the online videos very well without super optimization.
I also don't really care for the idea of building my own box, I rather just have a nice compact design that is guaranteed to work with boxee. Boxee doesn't have to build the box itself, they could just make 'Boxee certified' HTPCs from other manufacturers.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 24th 2009 2:26AM]

They should add Boxee to Vudu Labs. I'm running low on HDMI ports so I don't like the idea of another STB...