And Now A Word From Our Sponsor

In the absence of a blog post today, here's an advertisement (of sorts) for the new Boxee iPad app, straight from the show floor at CES:

#Web/Tech

Comments (Archived):

  1. Pat

    Nice. But I couldn’t help noticing that you couldn’t ‘air-play’ the transcoded videos that you are streaming off your Mac/PC.

  2. Sheldon Thomas

    Pretty cool… I’m curious about the Boxee media server part… can’t wait to here more. May alter a few plans I have building a media server.

  3. paramendra

    Out of the box thinking post.

  4. FotoFuze.com

    And Now 🙂

  5. baba12

    Still trying to figure out what your rationale was/is for the investment in Boxee. Yes good product and all but there are many others in the marketplace. Also the big TV manufacturers in time will incorporate the hardware of a Boxee/Roku etc into the TV ( You have ethernet already in there, matter of time before a 160GB or 256GB Flash drive will get dropped into. Then they need the secret sauce of a software that ties it all together. SO far they have fucked up when it comes to software and user interfaces, but I think they could do a good job.So then my thinking is you hope that one of the TV guys will buy Boxee out for its software.Which sounds great but there must have been some other ingredients that made USV invest in Boxee, and I am not sure what it is.

    1. awaldstein

      I can’t speak to the investment but as a Boxee and AppleTV fan I think there is a lot more there than you state.Boxee, more than any other company has a vision of the social intersection of what we do on the web with video and the big screen. From interface to sharing to community. They certainly, more than AppleTV (whose Airplay is really cool) and GoogleTV (oy!) seem to be building towards something new that is more than just the web and more than simply streamed content toward the big screen.It ain’t perfect but software and lean-back controller design are leading the pack, if not redefining it.It makes sense that Boxee will be incorporated into the big screens…and that may be their model. But I’m not a believer that Sony or Samsung or any of the big glass manufacturers have the chops to bridge the intersection between the laptop on your lap on the couch and the big screen. Apple can though.

      1. baba12

        I think the Sony’s & Samsung’s of the world will wake up eventually to realize the value of software as they are still trying to hold onto the idea that hardware is still the way to rule the world.Sure you need great hardware to build on top but there is a lot more needed to be done from the software standpoint that has not been done so far.Will it be Apple or a Boxee or something completely different, to be seen.All I know is there will be some interesting new hardware technologies getting implemented within the big glass manufacturers in the very near future that will cause some major upheavals.Look forward to the interesting times.But I will not rule out Sony or others changing and learning to walk again.

        1. awaldstein

          Time will tell…The glass manufacturers are all being commoditized and looking for something…connected apps, 3D, whatever.I think it is time for a changing of the guard and let the old school dinosaurs pass away and be replaced by consumer based connected value. They’ve had their time and have done a poor job of understanding the needs of the consumer. Everything changes.

          1. Dave W Baldwin

            Yes and because the consumer is becoming smarter, like the 3D fiasco where they thought people would want uncomfortable expensive glasses.

          2. awaldstein

            Consumers are both smarter and empowered by the social web. So yes, I agree.3D is another story. Passive eyewear and putting the shuttering in the projector and brightness on the screen worked really well. A variant of that for the home is probably the answer as well.

          3. Dave W Baldwin

            To gain the higher volume of units sold, too many looked at what was required and thought they could hold off for 2-3 yrs. and see what is available.Since 3D is not my area, I do not know how much was invested in production…just knew that having everything you would want available plus the connection to the tablet/phone that had to be coming quick would override the bigger 3D buying fad banked on.The two ad spots, Windows and iPad (with AppleTV at the end) set the tone moving into ’11.

          4. awaldstein

            Watch the REAL D (RLD) passive eyeware sets that will start coming out next holiday. This was technology I worked with 5-6 years ago when it was being developed for industrial/governmental 3D imaging and has some real breakthrough components.The trick was running it into the manufacturing process in a cost effective way. Will take something like that to get stereoscopic 3D imaging into the mainstream outside of the theatres.

          5. Dave W Baldwin

            Very good!

    2. fredwilson

      i think there will be a software layer that runs on the connected devices and is the interface to all the content that will be delivered via the web to these devicesi think that Boxee can be one of, if not the leading, provider of that software layer

      1. ShanaC

        how deep is your idea of the software layer? how does it integrate into the web as a whole? What are we talking about when we say “a software layer”

        1. fredwilson

          it depends on the application involved

      2. baba12

        So one of many hands USV is playing. I am guessing the investment to bang ratio makes it viable as Boxee is a software company that is building on top of XBMC. I hope they get embedded in someones silicon and not try and eke out a living as a box. They did create their box to be not shaped flat ( blatant attempt to suggest that nothing can sit on top of them, they are the box of on top of all boxes).Personally since I don’t believe I will want to have cable television, I await the day when I can truly get Wireless broadband services that give me the content I want where I want and when I want for a reasonable price. Until then I am satisfied with OTA and some nefarious means to gather my content as and when needed.I wish more people were willing to challenge the price gouging and cut their chords.

  6. scottythebody

    That is exactly what I need. Being in Europe, Boxee isn’t that great for us because most of the content is blocked. But being able to stream any media format to my iPad = killer app.

    1. btucker

      Have you tried Air Video ( http://www.inmethod.com/air… )? I’ve been using this for this purpose for awhile and absolutely love it!

  7. Dave W Baldwin

    Enjoyed watching Fred. I’m glad someone as yourself is involved with Boxee because it will make a difference. The consumer is ready to purchase what they consider useful…it is a matter of their having an opportunity to experience it.

  8. btucker

    I want so badly to love Boxee– unfortunately, I run into issues nearly every time I use it.1) Some locally stored TV shows inexplicably never show up in the TV section while others do2) The Netflix app has a lot of catching up to do to get to the polish of the one in the new Apple TV. Two specific issues: Episodes aren’t listed in order, browsing categories results in very jumbled results3) Flash video from online sites seems to work only about 50% of the time. I know this is a really touch problem.

    1. fredwilson

      do you run boxee on a mac mini or pc or do you use the boxee box?