Boxee Box gets another update, cements its position as the best HTSTB money can buy.

Much has been said of the Boxee Box, D-link’s fledgling foray into the world of home theatre set-top boxes, running the gamut from “streamlined” and “Polished” (agreed!) to “Disappointing” (…not so much). While it’s true that D-link’s little box has been lacking in some key areas (cough cough MUSIC PLAYER cough), when it comes to ease of use and across-the-board file compatibility, Boxee sits in a class that is simply untouchable by heavy hitters like GoogleTV, Roku, and especially AppleTV.

Now, after a scant 6 months, Boxee has widened that gap even further with its latest update, 1.1.1.19092 (or just 1.1 for the masses.)

1.1 addresses some of the more irritating oversights on the Box, and adds some great new goodies including Movie Trailers, improved HTML5 support, and a totally revamped (read: usable) browser. But there are a few little winks and nods that have found themselves baked in to the OS that no one seems to have noticed, but are, to me, elements that help make the Boxee experience the best you can get.

File Name Integration

When it comes to browsing media on your local network, Boxee offers up 2 options. One is to use your SMBshare folder architecture and find the file you’re looking to play buried in your network’s system, a method that’s pretty straightforward, but not too elegant. The other is to use Boxee’s slick interface which aggregates all your content and displays it with boxart so your library looks like…well, a library. To accomplish this, Boxee reads the fliename and then pulls content from the Web to create the artwork. Thing is, Boxee only knows what you tell it, and if you have a file that’s not quite properly named, it gets confused. For instance, I have a copy of “An Evening with Kevin Smith” that’s broken into 2 parts, so because the second half is titled “Part 2”, Boxee will only give me boxart for the sequel. This can get irritating. Now, finally, Boxee’s playback includes an “Are You Sure” pane before the media starts, that includes the name of the file you’re about to watch. If it’s improperly labelled, no worries; just click “Identify” and update the file’s info immediately. It’s a little thing, but it makes the experience just a little more user-friendly than the other guys.

HFS support

FINALLY. I’ve always wondered why new files added to my network drive would take FOREVER to show up in my Boxee UI. Turns out, until now, Boxee has not supported HFS drives, the format used by Apple computers since 1985. The system would work, but updates and drive scans would take forever. That issue is now a thing of the past, and new content shows up in the media browser almost immediately.

Wallpaper

Again, this is just a little thing, but the 1.1 update now sports a fancy (and decidedly Apple-OSX-Leopard-looking) starry night wallpaper. At first glance, it doesn’t look like there’s any way to customize it, but even so, the addition of it is a nice little touch that just adds a little polish to the experience.

Quick-Search Bar for Apps

This was added to the Media Browser in the last update, but was noticeably missing from the App browser. That little alphabetical quick-nav vertical bar makes browsing Boxee’s considerable app library much easier.

A SCRUBBER

This is the big one. Boxee’s video playback has always been exceptional, but the old ffwd-rwd tool was so painful to use, I would up barely using it at all. Now, Boxee has wised up and added a simple, easy-to-use scrubbing playhead to the UI, while a the same time doing away with the bloated icon vomit that cluttered up the screen. This, combined with SMB support, makes watching media streamed from a Mac as smooth and seamless as watching a Blu-Ray or DVD.

Stuff I’d like to see

I stand by it: Boxee Box is the single best HTSTB you can buy today, bar none (this side of an HTPC, at least…though for the cost, there’s no equal.) But is it perfect? I wish. There are still some glaring omissions that make no sense to me, principal among them being the lack of a dedicated music player. If BB handled music playback half as well as it handled video, your days of wishing for the perfect iPod stereo integration would be behind you, as would be your need for another dedicated STB like an AppleTV. Hulu support is still missing, though that’s not entirely Boxee’s fault, and there are workarounds. As a Canadian, though, it makes little difference to me anyway. Online ad-supported TV content still opens in a browser page, forcing you to navigate to the Full-Screen button, which is always a race against time before the opening ad finishes playing. Finally, the 2-faced remote, while brilliant in concept, still lacks a touchpad and, even more crucial, a backlit keyboard… but software updates will never fix that.  Hopefully Boxee Box 2 will bring little goodies like that to my coffee table, but for now I’ll continue to enjoy what is easily the best STB on the market, and the single device that has overtaken nearly 100% of my non-broadcast media viewing.