:: A Year Of Good Things : 5/366

Sometimes, Good Things can seem kinda shallow. I get that. Like buying this Boxee Box. That doesn't really seem particularly enriching.  I am here to tell you that it really is enriching.  Okay. It's a material thing, and I am not much in favour of getting spendy to feel good.  But THIS material thing is really ace.  My whole family are enamoured with it. Everyone wants to press its buttons and have a turn.  We all want to sit together and watch good stuff and take turns (nicely....sometimes..!) with the remote. It's giving us nice holiday hanging out times, and more shared viewing when we're a bit snoozy and don't want to go outside.

NB : Not A Sponsored Post : I paid FULL PRICE for this at Officeworks in Fitzroy!

The Boxee Box is a media player/platform that connects to your TV via an HDMI cable.  It then uses its wireless internet connection to pull content from your internet connection (blogs, YouTube, iView, Facebook, anything!) which you can view (and type and interact on!) with your bestie or fam.  It can connect to any website via its inbuilt browser, but it also has easy to use apps which shortcut you to your fave places (like TED, Vimeo, Flickr and HEAPS more.) You can add apps as you please, too.  It comes pre-loaded with TONS of FREE movies (kinda old stuff and lots of arthouse stuff) and also lots of current FREE TV Shows (pulled from iView, SBS, Fairfax media and other digital channels.)   Yes, FREE.   If Netflix finally launches in Australia, there's a Netflix app, too, in case you want to buy movies or shows to watch that Boxee does not feature.

It will network with your computer or iPad, playing music or movies you might have downloaded.  And you can download an app for your iPhone, so you can use that as a remote too, if you want!  You can even download Boxee to your computer and set it up a bit like the Boxee Box, if you don't want to fork out for the actual real thing.  

The beauty of this piece of technological wonderment is that it will play all kinds of files and doesn't need iTunes to drive it.  Platforms like AppleTV will only work in conjunction with iTunes.  And streaming media players like WDTV Live don't have a browser.

You can add a Boxee bookmarklet to your browser and clip/save videos to watch later. They'll appear in a 'Watch Later' queue when you turn on your Boxee and you can watch them on the big screen. Nice. You can also connect your Boxee to your Twitter or Facebook and share what you are watching socially with your pals.

This Boxee Box is the missing link in our household. It connects all our devices to one screen, so we can watch the things we each like, together.   Max plugged the USB stick for his wireless keyboard into the back of it and BINGO! He can browse the internet with a proper keyboard on the big screen.  I plugged my external hard drive into the back of it and BINGO!  We can watch downloaded files or listen to music or look at photos on the big screen. We can also stream movies to it via my iPad. While we crochet. And play cards. And thrash each other at Scrabble.  It is the besty best fun, shifting internet usage from a solo one on one screen thang, to a full family extravaganza. 

It's small. It's SUPER easy to set up. It works seamlessly and it even has a little keyboard on the underside of the remote so you can type URLs in easily (so you don't ACTUALLY need an external keyboard.)  The Boxee is REALLY useful and pants kicking to its competitor's products (one of which I bought a few weeks ago and it broke in about ten days....!)  It's not cheap. But it's great. And for people like us who don't have cable, it's a great way to view the kind of stuff WE want to watch, when we want to watch it, instead of paying a subscription fee for rubbish we DON'T want to watch.  I don't much like a lot of the stuff the telly serves up.  (Except for the ABC and SBS!)

Boxee at Harvey Norman

Boxee at Officeworks

Boxee at Dick Smith

I know. It's not a standard Good Thing. It's not going to change the world. But it's changed MY world. In a Good Thing way. And I love it. Maybe you will love it too?!

xx Pip

5|366
Good Thing : Making It Easier to Watch Good Stuff Together
This Good Thing Is For :: The Whole Family
Join A Year Of Good Things :: Be A Daily Do-Gooder 

Pin It