D-Link Boxee Box review

UPDATE: When we first reviewed this product there were some bugs in the interface. A recent firmware update has removed these, so we’ve updated the review and increased the rating.

We’re used to seeing media streamers with basic text interfaces, but D-Link has done something different with the Boxee Box: it uses the well-known Boxee.

If you haven’t seen it, Boxee is a free media centre application that’s designed to be shown on a TV. Rather than simply listing files from your local network, it also provides apps for online services and pulls in videos, music and photos from a wide range of sources, including user uploads.

It’s all tied together with social networking, so you can view media based on your friends’ recommendations. When we first previewed the box it was running US-centric firmware, but D-Link has updated it for a UK audience, integrating services that are available in this country.

First impressions of the Boxee Box are very favourable. The tiny – and there’s no other word for it – box, doesn’t look like a typical media player, but more like a funky clock radio or modern light. Its mirrored front hides the Boxee logo which glows green when you turn the box on. At the rear you’ll find an HDMI output, two USB ports for external storage (there’s also an SD card slot on the side), optical S/PDIF and stereo phono outputs. D-Link thoughtfully includes an HDMI cable in the box to get you up and running immediately. There’s also a 10/100 Ethernet port, although you can use the built-in WiFi if you prefer.

The highlight, though, is the fantastic remote control. This RF model (which doesn’t need line-of-sight) has three buttons on the front (play/pause, select and menu) and a directional cursor-pad for navigating menus, fast-forward and rewind. However, flick the remote over and it’s a full QWERTY keyboard, which you can use to search for media. It’s a clever idea and sure beats onscreen keyboards or entering data using a numeric keypad. All the keys are very responsive with a definite click to let you know that you’ve hit them.

Powering the box on for the first time, you’re asked to either create a Boxee account or log in to your existing one. If you already have an account you’ll find that your friends and Watch Later lists are automatically imported. With support for multiple users, everyone in your house can have their own Boxee account and preferences.

Next, you’re taken you through the process of getting the picture aligned to the screen. It correctly detected our 1080p LCD TV and set the resolution automatically. We then had the option to manually adjust the overscan, although we preferred to use the TV’s menus set to correct viewing mode instead.

Once into the main interface, the Boxee Box is just about the friendliest media streamer that we’ve ever seen. Across the bottom of the screen are big thumbnails of recommended services, and large icons for the main menu options: Friends, Watch Later, Shows, Movies, Apps and Files.

Browsing through the interface is a doddle, with the remote working in a similar way to an iPod: the single menu button either brings up a sub-menu or steps you backwards through the interface depending on where you are.

Friends lets you view videos shared by your friends on Facebook and Twitter, although you need to add this feature first using the Boxee website. You’ll also need to use the website to add your own Boxee friends to follow. Watch Later is your queue of programmes that you’ve lined up. It’s a great way of making sure that you don’t forget about a show or movie you found when browsing the interface.

Shows is where things get really interesting. The default view is a list of the most popular shows – you can ‘like’ a show to help boost its popularity. All programmes in this list are pulled from online video services. These include big names, such as Channel 4, but also smaller services, such as GeekBeat.TV. Selecting a show brings up a list of available episodes. For example, we selected Father Ted and could choose any episode from all three seasons.

Playing a show either plays the video directly or takes you to the website the video is contained on in the Boxee Box’s browser. Using the remote you can move the mouse cursor to make the video full-screen or access other options. It’s not quite as neat as having a full app, but means that you can use any online video service immediately.

Alternatively, you can start typing to find a show. This isn’t always successful, as we found that we could be diverted to a site that doesn’t support UK viewing, such as Fox TV. There are also a fair number of results for TV shows that are just for clips or trailers.

Movies does a similar thing for films. The main interface gives you the most popular films listed, with thumbnails for each. Selecting one either plays it directly or sends you to the hosting website using the built-in browser. You can also search for films, although there’s the same kinds of limitations as with shows: some sites require a subscription, while others aren’t supported from the UK. A potential work around is to use the Boxee Box’s VPN support to rent a VPN connection in the US to make it appear as though you’re American. Even without this, there’s a wide choice of films on offer, with a fairly decent range of free films. The quality is dependent on the service used, ranging from high-quality, almost DVD-quality films, to sub-SD footage.

If you know the service that you want to use, the alternative is to go to Apps. There’s a wide range of options here from iPlayer and YouTube to Fail Blog. Apps can work in different ways. The YouTube app, for example, works full-screen and lets you search for videos; iPlayer gives you an interface that lets you search and add videos to the Watch Later list, but playing a video takes you the iPlayer website.

Apps isn’t just for video: there are apps for popular websites and one to launch the browser, so you can browse the internet on your TV from your sofa. You can also add your own repositories of apps, and the Boxee website has a superb list. If you’re getting overwhelmed, you can add apps to your Favourites list to make them easier to find. Some apps contain adult content, but the Boxee Box can be set to hide this from view and require a password before viewing any potentially unsuitable content.

Impressively, the Boxee Box can also act as a standard media player, accessed through the Files menu. All you have to do is tell the Boxee Box where to look on your network. It supports both SMB file shares and UPnP media servers. For each folder or server you add, you just have to tell the Boxee Box what type of files are stored there (music, photos and videos).

It then scans the files to find out what you’ve got. Impressively, it can work out what’s a film and what’s a show (TV programme) based on the content, and then displays a relevant thumbnail. For example, Boxee detected the Shark Tale HD WMV file as the full film and showed a thumbnail of the film poster. If a film can’t be categorised it appears in Unidentified Videos in the Files menu.

The list of supported video file types is immense and all of our WMV, DivX, Xvid, VOB and ISO files worked flawlessly – check out the Specs page after you’ve red this review to see the full list of file types supported. All local videos can be resumed from where you left off. Occasionally, videos wouldn’t fit the screen completely and we had to adjust the settings on the video screen, including the image position and zoom level to eliminate black borders.

Music lets you browse by Artist and Album, but you can’t create your own playlist, which is a touch annoying. If you’re using a UPnP server you can access playlists by directly browsing the server, plus any other ways that the server cuts the music – our Windows 7 PC also presented All Artists, All Music, Composers and Genre when accessed directly. Playback is otherwise fine.

Likewise, photo viewing works well, letting you browse the folder structure of your server. If you’re using a UPnP server you can also browse by the attributes it sets, such as Picture Playlists, Albums, Rating and Keywords from a Windows 7 PC.

USB storage and memory cards can also be browsed directly from the File interface, which is great if you’ve just got back from holiday and want to see how your digital camera shots came out, or have a video you want to watch.

With its ability to collate media from the internet the Boxee Box is more than just a media player and we loved having access to lots of online services, such as iPlayer. However, as a media player it does a great job with a huge range of support for media files. The excellent interface is a joy to use and makes other media streamers look old fashioned. With the new firmware ironing out the bugs we initially saw, we don’t hesitate to give it our Ultimate award.