[mythtv-users] Thoughts on the upcoming Boxee Box as a possible frontend?

Raymond Wagner raymond at wagnerrp.com
Sat Sep 25 00:23:05 UTC 2010


  On 9/24/2010 19:28, Matt Emmott wrote:
> I'm not very familiar with the CE4100 and most searches turned up more 
> articles on the Boxee Box, but I believe I saw on Engadget that it 
> supports VAAPI, which I see is in preliminary support in .24. Wow that 
> was a run-on sentence. Is anybody familiar with this chip and its 
> feasibility with Myth? If it's an Atom then it's x86 code, which 
> should IMHO make it Myth-friendly.

It's an Atom, and only single core and 1.2GHz at that, so it's a piece 
of junk performance wise.  It's paired with the same PowerVR graphics 
found in the GMA500, and you're going to be relying on that for anything 
you might want to do.  Assuming you've got clean, error free content, in 
a codec with settings compatible with the chip, it will work great.  If 
you've got something else, you've got nothing to fall back on, just like 
any other underpowered system.

That's assuming this thing has enough memory.  I've not see that 
statistic printed anywhere.  512MB is a bare minimum for a frontend at 
HD resolutions, 1GB would be better.

> A) What OS is it running

Windows.  Netflix streaming requires Silverlight, which requires 
Windows.  Unless they've signed some deal with Netflix which provides 
them a custom interface, that's the only option.

In the end, you just have an ugly, glossy black and green cube-like 
thing, that doesn't fit in with any of your other equipment.  The least 
they could have done was make it rectangular and thin like the Apple 
kit, such that it could be strapped onto the back of a TV and forgotten 
about.


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