Ten (More) Tips for the Boxee Box
At first glance, you might think its features are limited, but the Boxee Box is one of those devices that gives back more if you invest some time getting to know all of its capabilities. It’s depth derives from the fact that it can play back just about every video from the internet or your computer that you throw at it. A while back, to help in this regard, the folks at GigaOhm’s Cord Cutters prepared a list of ten tips for Boxee. These included how to bookmark webpages for Boxee; how to easily watch videos discovered on your computer at a later time on Boxee; how to access more third-party apps and more.
To help you take your Boxee Box even further, here are ten more tips:
- More Than Movies and Shows
If you only use Boxee to watch Hollywood movies and network television shows, you are missing out. One of the real strengths of the Boxee Box is its ability to access all the video on the web. You can check out video podcasts, Youtube viral videos, animated shorts, mainstream and alternative music videos and more with your box – all on a big screen from the comfort of your couch. Some of this content can be found on popular websites like Youtube and Vimeo. Other amazing content can be found through the specialized apps like Baeble Music for great indy concerts, Butterscotch for tech how-to videos, Earth-Touch for wildlife videos and so much more. Indeed some of the most profound content online today comes from independent producers taking full advantage of this new video medium.
- Check Out StumbleUpon on the Box
If you have never used StumbleUpon, get an account now. If you have, you know the amazing sites it can show you. At the click of a button StumbleUpon shows you the best in random content in categories of your choosing. With the Boxee Box Browser and setting StumbleUpon to only show you videos, you can watch fantastic clips one after another. It’s take a little to get started given you have to use the Boxee remote with the Box, but once you are logged in, you put your cursor over the Stumble button and click once for each new video.
- Create YouTube Playlists
A YouTube playlist will play a series of videos for you one after the other. You select the content and the order of these clips. You can find playlists created by others on YouTube too. Simply bookmark the page for a particular playlist using Delicious as described in the Corder Cutters article and you can have hours of uninterrupted music videos or other content.
. - View Videos Recommended by Friends
Boxee allows you to connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts. With this integration, you can easily watch videos recommended by your social network buddies under the Friends tab on the Boxee Home screen.
. - Share and Follow ‘Loved’ Content
The Boxee Box gives you the ability to like content or in Boxee parlance, to ’love’ it. Just click the Enter button on the Boxee remote and a heart symbol will appear in the upper right corner. If you have connected your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts, you can post the Boxee version of a like. One way to discover new content is to do a search on Twitter for 'Boxee’. You will see lots of content being ’loved’ by others.
. - Discover Content Through Delicious
Another way to discover some content is through Delicious.com. The link will show all content that has been identified with the Boxeemark tag. As per the original CordCutters tip, at the bottom of the page you will find an RSS link that you can copy to your Boxee account. This will allow you to see the latest 15 links of the approximately 8,000 tagged with Boxeemark. You can even get more specific and add another tag, such as sports, to narrow down your search.
. - Create Updating Video Lists with Yahoo Pipes
If you are feeling more adventurous and know how to string functions with complex text searches together, you can use Yahoo Pipes to create cool mash-ups of video content. For example, you can automatically find the top ten movies on Rotten Tomatoes or the top 40 songs on iTunes and get the videos off of YouTube. Then you grab the RSS feed and add it to your Boxee account. If you are uncomfortable creating your own feeds, here are the movie and song feeds already mashed-up for you – Top 40 Music Videos; Trailers of Top 10 Movies.
. - Direct Jumping Forward and Back in Videos
Because Boxee Box is accessing streaming internet video, fast-forward and rewind functions do not always operate very well. However, with many videos, you can simply enter in a time code and jump directly to that point. The code is entered in HHMM format with no seconds. Four numbers must be entered at all times. So, to jump to an hour and nineteen minutes into a movie, you would enter 0119. Simply hold down the ALT key and punch the four numbers while the movie is playing. You do not have to select a menu or perform any other step. - Increase Your Remote Options
While it is great that the Boxee Box remote has a Qwerty keyboard on the back, anybody that has used the thing for more than a few minutes knows how hard it is to see the keys, particularly in a dark room. Because of this difficulty, you may want to consider another remote solution. Your first option is to use the remote app by Boxee for the iPhone. There’s no problem seeing the keyboard then – just be careful that it’s always on status can drain your battery. Another option is to use a universal remote like those from Logitech. However, the Boxee Box remote is radio frequency (RF) while most universal remotes are infra red (IR). So, you will need an RF extender. Fortunately, Twisted Melon makes an inexpensive one for the box. Within the next month or so, you should have a third alternative as the folks at Boxee are promising an iPad app. - Beware the Fading Remote Battery
As you probably know, the Boxee uses a large watch-style battery. When it starts to fade, it causes an unusual behaviour. Instead of getting difficult to select content it starts to skip as if each key had been pressed multiple times. If this happens to you, chances are your remote is fine, you just need a new battery. You should be able to find them at Best Buy or other large electronics shop for a few dollars.
If you have made it this far, you get to know about the special bonus tip. Navi-X is an app that provides access to a vast array of internet video (and other content). The app allows people to create link directories that you can search and click to watch content hard to find otherwise. Because people can link to anything on the net, you will find the weird and the wonderful. You will also find the legit and not-so-legit (just like Google). Legit examples of content include links to the video pages of just about everything television network in the United States, Britain and Canada; music videos of all sorts; game trailers; documentaries; instructional videos; art films; viral videos; movie trailers; music concerts and much more. To get Navi-X, on the box, go to Apps / Repositories. Click the + (plus) sign and enter DIR.StreamFREE.TV. Once added, click on it and you will find the Navi-X app inside. You can then favourite it and load it.
With a little effort, the Boxee Box can be a great addition to your viewing entertainment. You may even find yourself wanting to ditch cable – especially if you are not well served by mainstream fare.
Have any Boxee Box tips of your own to share? Have you cut the cable yet? What will it take? What do you still think is missing?
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