Drat! I'll no longer be able to watch 320px-wide video on my 40" TV! Do people really watch YouTube on their televisions? It seems like a terrible waste to me.
I spend most of my time watching things like hulu/cnn from the net over UGC internet content on my TV, but having youtube is nice. I'd certainly rather have it than not have it. The 1080p and 720p content changes the usefulness of it quite a bit though. I hope Boxee doesn't get banned. If it does, there will be a work around within 24 hours.
This also reinforces my hypothesis that going with "toy" boxes like roku, popcorn hour,etc. are a bad idea. We don't need to dumb down the hardware that's connected to our tv, but adapt it's purpose/interface. We have "OS'" for our 3 inch screens. We need one for our 50 inch screens.
In defense of the Roku boxes, they do have their place. I dropped Dish a few months back for 100% Roku based tv viewing. The box just works. Yeah, it is a bit limited, and with a queue of 250 movies it becomes difficult to find things.
But my 7yo can operate it with no problems. It doesn't (hasn't) crash, and I don't have to screw around with it like I would a MythTV system.
The so called "toy" boxes may be a bad idea in theory, but until something significantly better comes along they're hard to fault. I replaced an old PC with a popcorn hour box and I couldn't be happier. It does what I need, it's silent, it start up faster, it's more aesthetically pleasing, it's much easier for everybody to use and it's super cheap.
I do something similar and it's amazing. I cannot live without it. Costs will go down. Mac minis START at 599. This is a good price point for a full fledged HD capable computer.
