Boxee Box confirmed features

As a long time Boxee software user, there’s a reason I’m looking forward to the new Boxee Box built by D-Link and designed by San Francisco design company Astro Studios.  The diminutive media player designed to play internet and local content to your television is more expensive than the cheaper players like the Asus O!Play Air and the WD Live TV HD, but cheaper than a HTPC.  Boxee, with it’s XBMC pedigree, has an unprecedented level of codec support, only bested by a dedicated Windows PC setup, and the user interface is light years ahead of the the $100 devices from Asus & Western Digital.  This makes the $200 price tag very compelling, and if the device performs as expected, it could the be the connected player for the masses.

The Boxee Box launches on November 10th, just two short days from now.  Originally planned to come out this past spring running on Tegra, the Boxee team had to scrap that hardware choice, and have opted for Intel’s 4100 CE platform.  4100 CE will play back 1080p content with no problems, and with a lightweight custom Linux distribution supporting it, there should be little overhead for the system.  Approximate cold boot time is 45-50 seconds.  While looking up some info on it, I happened across a forum posting at boxee.tv with a list of features that Boxee devs have confirmed with other sources.

Some of the known specs…

Audio output handling is a little bit interesting…

Auto – Simultaneously output from HDMI, S/PDIF and analog. Audio is downmix to 2 channels PCM. This is the default
HDMI – HDMI only
S/PDIF – S/PDIF only
Analog – Analog only

• 10.1 Flash support
• .wtv support – windows 7 media center TV recordings
• embedded ASS/SSA subtitle inside MKVs – subtitle fonts/colors/positioning (libass?) support
• supports read/write from HFS+ formatted hard drive – (Mac)
• BluRay support: supports playback of BD ISO – can select which title you want to play from a list – can also select different chapters – can also browse and play a specific file, BD Folder structure support
• supports full DVD menus either from an ISO or folders
• go to a specific time in a video – ie…by typing 0020 to get to 20 minutes into the video
• Boxee Box can down sample a DTS stream to Stereo output for scenarios not using a receiver
• Boxee Box acts as a NAS via SMB (R/W)
• Most any USB HDD can be used on BBox – powered or unpowered
• SDHC cards up to 32Gbs – “possible” SDCX support in the future with proper licensing
• USB Hub support – and multiple HDDs att’d the the Hub
• Cold Boot up time – 50 seconds
• Ext4 HDD format support
• Firmware updates will be automatic and mandatory
• USB Keyboard support, Support for USB adapter for MCE2 compatible IR Remote
• DRM support – has all required software and hardware – I had thought there was no support, but it’s clearly stated on AVS by a Boxee Dev
• 10/100 support only – no Gigabyte ethernet
• Remote is ‘English only’ characters – GUI supports other languages/fonts ei…file names – subtitles
• Internal Fan size – 30mm – internal fan noise is virtually non-existent from 50cms (approx 20 inches) away – (-23db) – considering 20bds is the lowest average detectable sound a young person with no hearing loss can usually hear – that’s pretty quiet!
• Upon 1st power up – an update will most likely take place
• The BBox will ID DVD ‘Folders’ as one title
• Jump to options – 30 sec jumps – long jumps based on clip/content length (10 min. on 90 min. clips/content) – jump to specific time line location – ie…entering 0026 takes you to 26 mins. into the content
• AVCHD support will be added in a future update
• 23.976Hz support
• Apple AFP support – if not on initial release – will be updated/supported soon

Once again, these are just some of the features.  The forum thread has a lot more information, so I’d highly recommend looking there if there’s other features you’re looking for.