

Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living room - antr
http://gigaom.com/2013/07/04/boxee-acquired-cloud-dvr-shutting-down-post-mortem/

======
josteink
As a Boxee Box owner, I think they had a chance, a niche of their own and they
blew it.

When I bought the Boxee Box, it was because I had sampled the software for
free on a regular PC first. Yes, you could actually download the software, see
that it met your needs, and then buy it, prepacked as a dedicated device, an
appliance.

It was genius marketing and it had me throwing out my old setup instantly.
Everything just worked. The remote was unmatched. Simple on one side. Qwerty
on the other side, for apps, searches, etc.

The box itself played all kinds of file-formats & sources without a hitch. It
extracted, identified and unified meta-data much better than any other
software I have seen, and auto-combined it into a huge database, all without
having performance degraded, like much software does when the library goes
big.

Everything was great. They even shipped updates, and with a simple checkbox,
you could join the beta-channel to get early releases.

And you did get releases often enough to feel that you were using a _living
product_. It was great.

But then, suddenly they seemed to shift focus. You could no longer download
and sample the software. You _had_ to buy the box, unsampled. Then they
shifted focus away from the one thing it did great (play your media, from your
storage and network devices) to the one everyone fails at: Creating a "unified
livingroom media experience".

Big surprise: They failed at it.

They wanted me to sign up for an account, have it integrate with everything
social, pull all my friends embarassing youtube likes and linked facebook
content, in my face, everytime I turned the device on.

And then they stopped updating the apps and app-repos. That Youtube app which
was kinda shit, but sorta worked? Yeah, no longer working after Youtube
introduced couch-mode. And they're not fixing it either.

There also seems to be some performance problems arising. But nobody has been
pushing any updates to fix that. So you need to reboot the device every now
and then.

They went from being what everyone wished XBMC could be, to something
completely without focus. They took and sacrificed the one thing they did well
trying to be "everything to everyone".

They took something which worked well and let it rot, super-busy failing at
something else.

I hope Samsung buying these guys means they will be going back to doing what
they used to do well. Because I need a new media-box soon and I still haven't
found anything which looks like a worthwhile replacement for my old Boxee box.

~~~
_pmf_
> to the one everyone fails at: Creating a "unified livingroom media
> experience"

Indeed. What I wouldn't give to have simple media playback from USB storage
instead of "unified livingroom media experience" on consoles ...

~~~
antocv
If you have a SmartTV you already have a simple media playback from any of
your devices, and from usb storage its dumb easy just stick it in the tv... if
you want the output to your smartphone then setup a dlna/upnp server somewhere
and stick the usb storage into that.

Run a minidlna server there, and thats about it, now the TV can browse and
play all the things Ive pointed minidlna too, and I can control the TV using
upnp apps on my phone, its a nice touchy interface with UPnPlay that can also
render the content on the phone if Id like.

A raspberry pi can run xbmc if you dont have a place/smallish-server where to
run minidlna, and xbmc has a upnp-server, so you can mount your content over
ftp/samba/http/upnp/nfs, or just plug your NAS into the raspberry.

Different networks? No problem, bridge them or use VPN and set a route for
multicast.

EDIT: If anyone is interested I can write a blogpost about it as it wasnt long
ago I tinkered with these setups. Especially IP multicasting was hairy.

~~~
inthewind
Well you make it sound so easy! An issue with the technology is trying to keep
up with it.

I have a basic HD tv (a samsung), it's not smart. It will play media from USB,
and it plays a lot of formats - only it suffers with a few annoying quirks. I
have sizing issues with the picture, and the media player doesn't let me turn
the screen off. It almost works. DVD playback is pretty poor too with a
separate LG player.

I don't want to run a separate media centre machine or NAS, all I want to do,
is plug a drive into the TV. I don't even care for the IMDB stuff. Just the
basics, easily locate file quickly, play it, play it from where I last paused
etc. A Pi sounds promising - though I wonder how good the actual picture would
be. Everytime I've tried XBMC or some such on a computer, the picture never
appears that smooth.

Not everyone has a smart phone either. What I'd like is something like a
Tablet, with HDMI out, and an SD card, and/or USB port - that I could quickly
attach to the TV.

The basics feel neglected.

~~~
antocv
"Plug it in and turn your dumb HD tv into a 'Smart'" schenaningans is on the
market, if you duck it there are several such USB-sticks, but I dont know how
good any of them are. Its more fun making your own I belive, and you get to
play with raspberry if you go that route.

Ive tried a Pi model B with XBMC and the output of it is indeed 1080p and
looking smooth, it can play an HD file without stuttering/lagging over samba
over openvpn. On the openvpn/samba server I have 30mbit up/down and Pi has
54mbit wifi then ADSL with up to 20mbit down.

Hm, if you dont want the Pi route, perhaps getting the cheapest andorid tablet
with hdmi out would do well, as you can run a upnp-renderer on it, the tablet
should have wifi as well. But then youd still have to run a dlna server on
some of your computers, for example on laptop.

~~~
inthewind
Thanks, can the Pi with Plex or XBMC, play straight from say a USB hard drive?
What's the audio quality like on it?

~~~
gman99
The Pi with OpenElec (XBMC) automounts USB drives. The onboard audio is
supposed to not be great (crackles when there is USB load? Not sure if this is
fixed). But if you're using the audio over HDMI to play through your TV, it
should be fine.

OpenELEC also supports CEC so you can use your TV remote to directly control
XBMC.

------
trotsky
Boxee's main problem is they built a platform for pirates, sold it at break-
even and expected to make their money selling said pirates $5 VOD movies from
walmart.

~~~
rrrrtttt
The same can be said about the iPod.

~~~
clarky07
Except for the sold at break even part.

------
gesman
I used boxee mostly for it's unparalleled ability to play all kinds of
downloaded [did i just say that?] movie formats from external sources and 10%
for it's WiFi + ability to render all kinds of movie resolutions on all kinds
of TV screens correctly.

It's design though was clunky and awkward and I never was going to pay for any
subscriptions and BS along these lines.

I still think that it's future could [or may] be in improving, enhancing and
"universalling" it's hardware to add more capabilities.

No one needs yet-another-stupid-platform used to monetize it's owners and de-
monetize your pocket.

Everyone needs simple, working and supported solutions.

------
ComputerGuru
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/](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)

~~~
yardie
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.

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

------
buster
As a Boxee owner i really liked it (the box itself is so nice in the living
room, it's neat!), but unfortunately some dumbass in the management decided it
would be better to fork xbmc, close the source.. that was the the problem. The
hardware was nice, the UI was nice, but no updates, obviously D-Link couldn't
keep up, they shut down many addons... a shame.

Fortunately i bought a Raspberry Pi last month, put XBMC on it and am happier
then ever. For a for better price!

R.I.P. Boxee, your management blew it.

~~~
engtech
do you have Netflix working on that setup?

~~~
buster
I would like to find out but i'm in a country that has no netflix :(

------
zavulon
I still use Boxee software I downloaded in 2010 on my living room HTPC I built
myself. It's ability to organize show and play all downloaded content is
unparalleled still. And I love controlling it all with a remote as an app in
my iPhone.

I would gladly pay $10/month to use the software, but I would never buy that
stupid box with all it's limitations. Yet Boxee did everything to alienate
users like me to try to sell those boxes. They discontinued the software,
updated the iPhone app to NOT work with the software without the box, etc.
Those things generated an outcry from all software users, but Boxee ignored
it, because if these are not paying users, then who cares? And no one still
bought those boxes anyway.

Lesson is: listen to your most passionate users. You will find a way to turn
them into paying users, it's much better strategy than to ignore them and try
to co quer new unknown markets.

~~~
simcop2387
Have a look at XBMC, boxee was originally (I don't know how much it ended up
that way in the end) on it. I believe there's also remote apps for XBMC like
that too. If that's not to your liking, Plex (also based on XBMC) has a number
of UI changes/improvements to help keep things organized.

------
AdrianRossouw
I liked it because it had a passable file navigation view. I never really
liked how it auto-detected files, and i was far too lazy at the time to
organize my growing collection. After boxee stopped supporting the software, i
finally replaced it with a proper plex setup.

I honestly think that the plex media server is the absolute 100% totally
correct way to develop a system like this, and it will only get better over
time. It's why Plex is so amazingly suited to having clients for smart tv's,
or roku or mobile ... Hell, i'm even busy putting together a Rasplex
(rasplex.com) setup on my raspberry pi.

Also a hint for anyone interested, the default Plex skin is atrocious, and
probably puts more people off than anything else. I recommend PlexAeon or
Refocus Blue.

------
andybak
Still regularly using my 1st gen Boxee box and in many ways I prefer it to
XMBC. It's fairly solid and reliable, the UX is excellent. XBMC had a much
clunkier and inconsistant UI - plus all the messing around with Linux distros
or other host OS's made it much less appliaance-like.

I'm planning to play with Android TV sticks next but I think they are still
pretty immature at this stage. However - it is a platform rather than an app
so I think it can evolve quicker to fill the TV niche. I find it incredible
that Google is doing so little themselves to help it.

------
paul_f
I only use my Boxee Box as a Netflix device today. We simply can't get all the
over-the=air channels where we live. And for some reason, Boxee is
antagonistic to Aereo.

What I think the world wants is the ultimate cut-the-cord solution. Boxee
could have been that.

------
stevewillows
Outside of everything, that boxee remote was one of the nicest designs.

~~~
engtech
except for the fact that you couldn't tell up from down in the dark because it
was symetrical.

It was really annoying when you went to pause, and instead turned netflix on.

~~~
stevewillows
That is very true. I would like to see a remote like that with a slight bump
on 'up'. Outside of the symmetrical design, I love the idea of a small
keyboard on the bottom.

------
ChrisNorstrom
I gave up on those walled-garden crippled-pc set-top boxes and just took an
old pc, hooked up the HDMI port to the living room TV, added a wireless mouse,
and all was well with my family.

They have completely stopped watching regular TV. They now watch YouTube
Videos, Foreign films, can play games on Steam, and Stream European cable tv
nearly 24/7\. Everything from bittorrent to youtube to netflix to Amazon to
whatever can be played on a PC. Music and Video Games included. My Home
Theatre PC is on 24/7.

The reason these Set top boxes like (GoogleTV AppleTV Boxee) keep failing is
because they're just crippled PCs. It's not about the UI, it's the freedom,
it's the usefulness. People will take something useful and ugly over something
useless and shiny. Why get a set top box when you can just watch things on
your laptop? What's the point? You want to watch on your big screen tv? Then
hook it up using an HDMI cable to your big screen tv. Or grab your tech savvy
son or daughter and have them hook up an old pc to the big screen tv.

------
YeahKIA
When it comes to filling up the gap, I am surprised that Xbox was not
mentioned particularly given how much Microsoft has tried to portray it as a
complete living room entertainment package as opposed to just a gaming
console.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
It could be if you didn't have to pay for XBox live to connect to the net.
However, if you're not a (social) gamer, XBox live offers no benefit over a
straight internet connection and costs $60/year.

As soon as my year is up, I'm moving back to a PC for streaming Netflix, and
if I'm doing that, the PC might as well play all my local media as well so the
XBox is going to be a games-only platform.

------
GnarfGnarf
It's very simple why Boxee failed. Have you tried the product? Did you not
notice that Boxee restricted where you could go? Boxee had a built-in list of
domains you couldn't visit, no doubt to encourage you to settle for the
domains with which it had licensing agreements. Read the fine print on the box
and you will see.

I couldn't access YouTube! I returned my unit to the store where I bought it,
and made sure the manager understood what he was selling.

Boxee was a despicable concept, insidiously controlling where you could and
could not go. I now use a $300 laptop to watch what I want, when I want, on my
42" screen.

~~~
andybak
I use my Boxee Box daily and I haven't noticed any of this. Do you mean via
the web browser? Unless this is something specific to the Boxee 2?

