Loving Boxee

I tried out Boxee around 6 months ago and quickly dismissed it as something that was potentially cool, but wouldn’t change my consumption of online video.  Then I finally got around to buying a DVI/HDMI cable and gave it a spin on my TV.  I’m kicking myself for waiting so long.

I have an inelegant setup right now:  I plug in my Mac Book Pro with a DVI/HDMI cable, and use some external USB speakers for sound.  I figure there is one cable that will allow you to use the TV speakers as well, but I don’t have it.  Despite the amateur setup, Boxee delivers.

The Good:

Netflix, TED Talks, Hulu, RSS Feeds from Fora.tv, YouTube, Live MLB…they’re all available to watch on your bigscreen.  The social features on Boxee allow you receive reccomendations from friends and helps solve the “nothing good is on TV” probelm.  I find the UI to be very intuitive, and it works great with the Mac remote.  Connecting with your Netflix account is a breeze.

The Bad:

There are still some kinks and it doesn’t have the “it just works” feel to it quite yet.  I had a bit of difficulty getting the video to size to my TV screen properly, particularly because the Settings option was pushed off screen when I was trying to fix that very problem.  The Mac application crashed a few times while I fumbled with the settings, but has been stable since.  The iPhone remote app works great, but will suck the battery down after 1 movie.  None of these are deal killers though, and considering how well their developement team responded to the Hulu controversy, I’m confident the negatives will be fixed soon.

If the NFL and NCAA build on the Boxee platform, I’m done with traditional cable.  I’m already tempted to axe cable without them on board.