A friend, knowing that I use XBMC at home, recently suggested I try Boxee.  At first I was reluctant, after all; all of my libraries are set up with XBMC and working perfectly fine, what else could Boxee offer me that XBMC doesn’t?  The answer is: quite a lot.

I’ll start off by stating that Boxee is actually developed from XBMC, and uses the XBMC code to run.  There are a few advantages to this:

  • It’s just as cheap (free!) as XBMC
  • It’ll play any files that XBMC can play
  • It has a large user community and strong development
  • It’ll run on far more platforms than some other media centers; Windows, Linux, Mac, AppleTV, all no problem.

These facts are where the similarities end, however.  Boxee has been designed from the ground up with online content and social networking at it’s heart.  As well as playing back any of your own media files, it can also pull down content from the internet from a variety of sources.  This is nothing that XBMC can’t achieve with a bit of tweaking, but the point of Boxee is that you don’t have to tweak it, it’s all there and ready to use right out of the box.

One big advantage that Boxee has over XBMC (in the UK at least) is the inclusion of BBC iPlayer, which allows you to watch most BBC broadcasts up to 7 days after they were first aired.  This is a feature that was removed from XBMC at the beginning of 2010, but Boxee has  been able to retain it by utilising your computers own web browser and accessing iPlayer directly.

In addition to iPlayer, there are countless other apps available for Boxee, popular ones include Youtube, Google Videos, Facebook picture viewer and Flickr, which will all allow you to view online content quickly and easily and from the comfort of your living room using nothing but a remote control or the Boxee iPhone application.

Boxee also allows you to connect your Boxee login with a number of social networking sites such as Facebook in order to view what your friends are watching and what they’ve recommended for you, this is a nice feature, but I was unable to find anyone on my Facebook friends list who uses Boxee.  Whether this is a bug in the software or testament to how many of my friends use Boxee remains to be seen, but for those who find it working it is a nice feature.

Where Boxee lags behind XBMC (in some people’s eyes) is the inability to change the look and feel to the same degree that you can on XBMC.  There are no additional themes available (so far as I can see), although users are able to specify an image (or images) to use as the wallpaper for the home screen.

That being said, the Boxee theme is perfectly usable.  It’s clean and responsive and offers a clear window into your media libraries.  The controls are optimized for remote controls, but a keyboard or mouse can also be used if you so choose, in fact a keyboard may prove useful when browsing for online content on YouTube or Google Videos.

The library management is very similar to that of XBMC, though the online database feature seems to be locked down to IMDB only (whereas on XBMC you can choose your database manually).  This is fine, though some TV show information was still missing after Boxee had completed it’s initial scan.  Adding or changing information is a little easier than on XBMC, the Boxee guys have given a shortcut for doing so on the interface so that you can quickly and easily change the information for your media.

Conclusions:

All in all, Boxee offers a well rounded alternative to XBMC for those who wish to have easier access to online media, whilst retaining the same level of information for their home libraries.  The inclusion of the social networking aspect is a nice thought, though how impactful this is in the long run remains to be seen.  Like XBMC, it has no PVR functionality, so is no use for those wishing to record TV broadcasts on their computer, but it remains at the forefront of media management and playback, and for that we give it top marks.

Pro’s:

  • Rock Solid XBMC Foundation
  • Free
  • Online media aspect
  • Works on all major PC platforms

Con’s:

  • Little personalization possible
  • Some media information missing from IMDB
  • No PVR Functionality

Rating: 10/10