The end of TV: Boxee + Apple TV + Hulu

The end of TV: Boxee + Apple TV + Hulu, a review of Boxee @ Tux Geek…

People want to do much more with their iPhone then Steve Job allows. So they jailbreak it. The same goes for the Apple TV. While it is a great and relatively cheap media center, it has restrictions, just like the iPhone. Wouldn’t it be nice to play xvid videos, stream shows from Hulu, listen to LastFm, Twitter the name of the movie you are currently watching or see what music your friends are listening to on your big screen TV connected to an Apple TV? Well, you can do that with Boxee!

Boxee is an open source media center, with social networking features, currently in an invite-only alpha stage. It is a fork of XBMC, a media center initially designed for the Xbox, but then ported to run on all major platforms. Boxee runs on Linux, Mac, and soon Windows. You can put it on your AppleTV with a grandma-simple “hack“, with no adverse effects.
What does it do?

As other media center software, Boxee allows you to browse and play media files (movies, music, photos) from local hard-disks or DVD drive and can stream music and videos from the internet or other computers in the network (SMB/SAMBA shares). It supports 1080p HD and it reads virtually any type of media, except DRM files.

Boxee scans your default media folders and downloads the related meta-data and artwork for your music and video files. Unfortunately, it doesn’t import your iTunes or iPhoto libraries – a big loss for Mac users.

When playing a song you can choose to see the lyrics (especially useful for a karaoke night) or display information about the band or artist.