back to article Iomega TV with Boxee

I’ve reviewed various models in Iomega’s ScreenPlay range in the past and, to be honest, haven’t been wildly impressed by any of them. Weaknesses such as the inability to list album tracks in the correct order suggested that Iomega’s designers hadn’t exactly thought things through properly. Iomega TV With Boxee and Network …

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  1. Alex Walsh

    You can pick up a (HDD-less) Boxee Box for £166 online, that leaves you almost £200 to buy either a NAS box or USB HDD's. I spotted a £3tb NAS box for £209 the other day (Buffalo). I think this makes the Iomega TV exceptionally bad value for money.

    Boxee rocks though :D

    1. Danny 14

      danger will robinson!

      you would be better off trusting your data to a 3 year old with crayons than to a buffalo NAS. Even worse if its a raid 5 one.

  2. Arrrggghh-otron

    Of you could just buy something like the Acer Revo or Veriton PCs and run whatever you like... Boxee? No problem. Media Center? No problem. Web browser with the full desktop experience? No problem, PVR? No problem.

    While it does come with the attendant problems you get with any PC, they offer a far more flexible solution, particularly when you compare them on price...

    1. Goat Jam

      Boxee on Revo

      Don't bother, Boxee have killed the downloadable version and are no longer supporting it.

      The last (and final) release is currently in beta and is absolutely ridden with bugs and general crapness.

      One hopes that they will at least fix the bugs before they walk away from it.

      I'm in the process of finding an alternative. Might even have to go the Windows route with Mediaportal.

      http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/27/boxee-1-5-update/

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Preacher
    Thumb Down

    Wireless adaptor

    "Iomega also throws in a USB adaptor for 802.11n wireless networking", if you're going to include the adaptor why not build wireless into the box in the first place?

  4. Alan Edwards

    >Those first three come from the Boxee service, which basically just rounds up a bunch of films,

    > TV programmes and other content from around the web and then drops you into a web

    >browser in order to view them

    Unless they've seriously nobbled this box compared to the D-Link, that's only part of what it does. You can set up file sources to your network or local storage and it will scan them and drag down poster art and film/series/episode details and present it in a list that sorts the episodes into seasons by series. For the most part it/'s automatic if you name the files right, but you have to help it to work out what's what sometimes.

    > with no sign of the BBC iPlayer

    There should be an iPlayer app. It's not brilliant, but it just about works...

    I'm not a fan of the cube-that-sank-into-the-table design of the D-Link so this is tempting, but it's too expensive for now.

    Any idea what the processor is? The D-Link has an Atom CE-4100 that does pretty well for what it is.

  5. Ross 12

    firmware update

    I have a boxee box which I got for chrimbo - looks exactly the same as your screenshots except for the iomega logo. I found that doing a firmware update (somewhere in the settings menu) gave me BBC iplayer amongst other things.

    Rather hoping the next version will be even less US-centric.

  6. Volker Hett

    In case they use WD 2TB Harddisks, better add another one from somebody else as a backup. I had far to many WD20EARS with capital failures recently.

  7. Daniel 4

    WD offering rather poor, actually

    Having tried the WD Live Plus Omega Fun Thingy (or whatever they call it these days), I have to say I found the D-link Boxee offering more than worth the price. Of course, the WD box failed to handle files in a number of creative ways, even after proper firmware upgrades. The Boxee interface is polished well enough for me for local media. More importantly, it plays everything.

    -d

  8. Zack Mollusc
    WTF?

    If you have to create a boxee login and password to use the thing, I will pass. I had a quick look at boxee's site and that is pestering me to sign up even before I have downloaded the software. It also fails to explain whether all these billions of tv shows and films that are online will be available to the UK, or indeed, what form they take. What the hell does this boxee thing do? Torrent stuff and try to buffer it into a real-time stream? Search youtube for videos with likely titles and > 19 minutes long?

  9. richard 7

    Of just use a PC

    We sell nice little AMD Fusion boxen the size of a video cassette for the same price that do a lot more, and Have an SD slot, and USB3 and ...... well you get the idea.

  10. Mike Cardwell
    Devil

    Privacy?

    Boxee's pretty good. As long as you don't mind sending them data about everything you watch and when you watch it - https://grepular.com/Boxee_TV_Helps_Its_Self_To_Your_Viewing_Habits

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Iomega?

    Blimey! –I never knew Iomega were still in business. I thought they'd disappeared, along with their bloody awful Zip Drives, a long time ago.

  12. AOD
    Linux

    XBMC ++

    The comments for the Revo et al are valid (I have an R6310 sporting Win 7 which I also run a variant of XBMC on called OpenELEC booting off an SD card) but a potentially cheaper (albeit less flexible) option is to get hold of an Apple TV 2, jailbreak it and install XBMC on it. This will handle just about any format you can throw at it (http://xbmc.org).

    I'm running two of these streaming media from our QNAP NAS (wired, not wireless before anyone leaps in) and they work like a charm. You do need some basic command line abilities for the initial setup but the process is well documented step by step on various sites.

    The bit I like about the ATV2s is that they're relatively cheap (£99 or $99 across the pond), small and have no fans. The fact that they can also stream Netflix as well (recently available in the UK but make sure you have the 4.4.4 software onboard otherwise don't bother) is a bonus. They are limited to 720p and won't output full hi def but as neither of my plasmas are full HD, it doesn't really bother me.

  13. SamCritch
    Boffin

    iPlayer and Spotify apps not available - yet

    I too bought the Iomega, under the impression that the firmware is *exactly* the same as the D-Link. Well, it's not. I mailed Boxee and Iomega separately asking if there was a firmware update coming for the Iomega. Boxee replied (Iomega didn't) and said they're working on it, but it's not just them working on the firmware. Presumably that means they're waiting for Iomega?

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