I’ve been on the hunt to find a web enabled media streaming box to add to my home theater. After much research I narrowed down my decision to 2 devices I feel that are the best out there. Those devices are the Roku 2 XS, the Boxee Box. The Roku and Boxee have a set of common features between them so I wanted to thoroughly test both to determine which was the one I’d like to keep. The Roku is a cheaper and simpler device to setup and use, so in my comparison I decided to focus on the  distinct features that the Boxee box offered to see if it was a better choice for me. Below I’ve identified the unique features Boxee offers. 
1. You can stream your own videos, music, and photos on it I feel that this feature is a must for any home theater today. We have all now amassed personal collections of photos, music, and home videos. Some of you may have setup other boxes you already have such as an Xbox 360 or PS3 for streaming these files. I was streaming using my PS3 and the PS3 Media Server. But as you may have found, this method isn’t ideal. The Boxee was built for sharing your own media from its inception. They also offer you several different ways to get the content from external sources to it. I’m using the built in SMB sharing to access the files from my NAS. It’s nice not having to have a program running on a computer that needs to be on to share content. So while there isn’t a native way to do this on the Roku, if you’re willing to hack a bit there are several third party apps (private channels) to do this. Probably one of the best options is Plex which is also based on the same XBMC software that powers the Boxee.
2. The remote has a keyboard I feel this is a very important feature that shouldn’t be underestimated when considering a streaming box. I have experienced the frustration of the single letter hunt and peck process of virtual keyboards on enough systems to know that I don’t want to continue wasting time using that process in the future. You will need to type words more often than you think on these boxes. Whether you are logging into a service, or trying to type in search words for a movie you want to find on Netflix, or if you need to type in the url of a website into the browser. You will need a keyboard to do this without losing your hair. And speaking of browsers…
3. It has a web browser So you have a box connected to the internet. Might as well offer the ability to browse the web too right? Well with a Boxee Box you can do this and with the keyboard on the remote you can rest assured that it won’t be an awful experience like it is on other devices without one.
4. You can bookmark videos on the web to watch on it Boxee offers a bookmarklet for your browser that provides a feature called “watch later” which allows you to be on any web page and when you click on the bookmarklet it will add any videos on the page to a view later area of the Boxee box to watch next time you fire it up on your couch. These videos can also be accessed via the iPad app. Wait what? They have an iPad app?
5. They offer a full featured iPad app add-on for free There’s an iPad app that provides access to some of Boxee’s features. This includes the “watch later” videos you bookmark functionality I mentioned above as well as accessing your personal movies, photos, and music. Another feature offered here (and also on the Box) is the ability to see all the videos shared by your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. You can also start watching something on the iPad and easily resume where you left off on the Boxee Box or vice versa.
6. You can send video to your Boxee Box from an iOS device using AirPlay This is an experimental feature and I’ve had some mixed results but it’s pretty cool. I’ve successfully sent videos from apps that support AirPlay to the Boxee box and this is a great feature that I hope improves over time. I also am not sure if they’ll support the mirroring function that came with iOS to send content to a TV but that would be great too.
7. You can watch live broadcast TV Boxee just announced their LiveTV $49 add-on which adds the ability to watch local broadcast stations (like ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC) for free. This feature will go a long way to attract cord-cutters whose primary concern for eliminating their cable subscriptions is the loss of being able to watch live news and sports programming.
There is one major feature on the Roku that the Boxee doesn’t have. The Roku 2 XS comes with a remote that includes a gyro built-in accelerometer for gaming. Included with Roku is the ever popular Angry Birds. It was lots of fun to kill the piggy’s on my big screen. Roku also aims to bring many more games to utilize this remote. So if this is appealing to you it may be something to sway you into the direction of a Roku.
So there you have it. A little deeper dive into the unique features of these devices. One thing to keep in mind when comparing them is that the Boxee does require a little more work to setup and access all of these features. The Roku is almost half the price so you need to determine whether these features offer enough value for you. Also, If your household has children or slightly less tech savvy users, the Roku may still be a better choice.
Have people found that the Roku or the Boxee are more sensitive to disruption than other wireless devices? In our house, there is a back porch (and therefore thick house walls) between our bedroom and the room where the router is. Other devices have worked fine, but when we got a Roku, we had intermittent problems with the audio. We tried switching cables and doing other things, but at the end of the day we ended up returning the Roku.
Not sure John. I have ethernet piped into my family room and always connect that way to my devices. There do seem to be many new options to offer wifi reapeating nowadays that might be worth investigating.
Reason #1 is essential in my book. Boxee can play anything – I’ve never had a file format it couldn’t play back. The interface is also very family friendly, which goes a long way too as I don’t have to be the one to navigate to content if others in the house want to watch something specific. The social features are very nice – underhyped I think as no other device does anything similar.
Yea Nathan, the social features are pretty cool. Especially being able to watch videos shared by your friends across multiple networks on it.
Have you thought about the Google TV boxes? I’m getting tired of the “another box” scenario and looking at replacing my Blu-ray with the Sony box. Looking at your list:
1) From what I’ve seen GoogleTV can play almost anything (at least anything I currently use), including MKV’d x.264.
2) Keyboard remote.
3) Browser that syncs with Chrome
4) You have a browser that syncs, plus I think there are apps or something similar.
5) Not sure what to say here, I believe there are tools for Android devices.
6) Supports DLNA, UPnP so it should work similarly, maybe not as gracefully.
7) Live TV is supported. Logitech’s is a pass-thru box and Sony’s has some cable features from what I’ve read.
8) Games are available
I’ve got to admit that the Boxee box is something that I’m seriously considering, but it’s hard for me to pull the trigger when I can spend ~$25 more and replace my Blu-ray player. Also, the Plex developer says that the Sony Google TV box is probably the best user Plex experience in terms of speed, functionality, and cost he’s found. (At Darrin’s Introduction to Google TV post.)
And they just announced OnLive for Google TV… I hate hard decisions…
http://lifehacker.com/5875172/all-google-tv-devices-just-got-onlive-game-streaming
Trae, I also own a Logitech Revue (Google TV) and unfortunately the experience to play local files out of the box isn’t there yet. I have installed Plex on my computer and tested it with Roku which left me unimpressed. I haven’t yet tried it with my Revue but will soon but my issue with Plex is that it isn’t setup to easily let you point to a directory and access files easily from there. That is a major drawback imo. I bought another app for Google TV that allows this, but it isn’t very elegant either. I also read that another update was released for Google TV that may rectify local file playback but I haven’t tried it yet. For now the Boxee box blows away Google TV in terms of experience for local file functionality.
from what I see, the support for boxee is now fairly pitiful, many of the links work, flash doesn’t work so 4oD etc doesn’t work. I realise this is now 12 months later, but fairly rubbish for something still twice the price!
Since I wrote this post I have also gotten a Google TV which has now become my main streaming box. I have also purchased an iMito MX1 which is a pocket android tv which I should be receiving soon. I have also backed the Ouya project which is an Android console for gaming that will also run XBMC and Plex when released next year. I now feel that Android really will be the best option for TV’s moving forward.
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