Boxee TV Offers A Decent Alternate To Cable

By Cornelius Nunev


There are numerous those who have had it with satellite and cable. For those kinds of people, there's a brand new product, called Boxee TV that might be worth checking out.

Challenging cable

A number of companies make and sell web-based television boxes that offer a severe challenge to cable and satellite companies. The idea is fairly simple; the box links to Wi-Fi and streams Netflix, Hulu and so forth, and also usually has a DVR function where they can record it.

A couple of years ago, the Boxee TV got released. It failed miserably. According to Time magazine, the company is trying it again with a new twist. All DVR recordings will be held in the cloud.

You can pay $99 for the Boxee TV, making it pretty inexpensive, and you also only have to pay $14.99 a month if you would like DVR services. That is pretty great.

Simple cable all you want

Consumers can use the Boxee TV as a DVR box since it has a cable port. It can also be used to pick up NBC, ABC, Fox, PBS, CBS and other publicly broadcast stations because it has an antenna. It has apps on it for YouTube, Pandora, VUDU, Netflix, Vimeo and more.

According to CNET, Boxee Television is good because it does not have an on-board memory and does not call for an external hard drive like other boxes require, such as the newly released Simple.TV. The system does not allow for pausing programs while watching them live on TV, but it does have a dual-code DVR recorder and can record two things at once.

You do have to pay the $14.99 monthly fee, which probably will not cost you short term loans, if you want to get the DCR service, though it is nice because there are no memory requirements.

Limited in the beginning

Unfortunately, the hitch is that the DVR services for the Boxee Television, according to TG Daily, are limited to just a couple towns to start with. Only residents of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., will be able to get the DVR services. The company plans on expanding the network over the next year, though.

Everyone else can only use it as a streaming device, until DVR services are available everywhere. At that it fails, since other set-top boxes for those who want to cut the cord are much cheaper and have more or the same streaming native apps.




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