Why the hype for the Boxee Box? Can't handle > 10Mbps bitrates = fail

[gigahertz20]

I was looking forward to the Boxee Box despite its ugly form factor, but then I've read that it will only be capable of 10 Mbits/sec 1080p HD decodes. So forget the usual 20 – 30 Mbps H264 rips on the Boxee Box.

It seems like the Boxee box is just a fancy XBMC box that may play most SD and 720p material, internet streaming channels etc, and a very limited portion of 1080p re-encodes if max bitrates are limited to 10Mbps.


Anandtech even had an article on it that I forgot about:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2911

 

[vshah]

in the 10s of megabits per second

that means 1 ten, 2 tens, 3 tens, 4 tens etc.

 

[gigahertz20]

that means 1 ten, 2 tens, 3 tens, 4 tens etc.

That Anandtech article did not state it correctly, another Anandtech article does:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3767/media-streamer-platforms-roundup/5

"One of the hotly discussed upcoming media streamer is the Boxee Box based on the Tegra 2 chipset. The SOC is based upon a much more powerful dual core ARM Cortex-A9, with a ARM 7 added in for host processor purposes. Standalone, this would beat the MIPS processors in the Realtek and Sigma Design chips hands down. However, Nvidia's HD decode engines have so far been restricted to the PC space, which do not call for a low power implementation. As yet, it is not known what shortcuts have been taken by Nvidia when implementing the decode engine in this space. It has already been reported that high bitrate videos are not supported.How will it stack up against the decode engines of Sigma Designs and Realtek? It will be known soon enough, once the Boxee Box lands in the hands of the reviewers."

Plus other resources on the net point out that the Tegra 2 chipset will not be able to handle high bitrate videos. Of course, I guess we will have to wait and see.

 

[darkswordsman17]

But Tegra 2 is infallible.

I actually like the form factor though.

 

[Modelworks]

The thing the sigma based boxes have going for them is that the hardware was designed for one purpose, playing back video. The dsp on the SOC was designed for blu-ray/DVR/IP-TV and it does it well. I have not seen a pc output that is better than the sigma boxes and often the sigma looks better than pc output because the decoding and deblocking engines are implemented differently.

I don't know what performance the boxee box will have but I can use my wdtv to play back 45Mbps streams over the network just fine. When you try to re-purpose an off the shelf gpu for other things you run into a lot of overhead supporting just the features you need.

 

[Emulex]

no problems with my $350 core2q8300 essentio playing 4K video

 

[KeithP]

So forget the usual 20 – 30 Mbps H264 rips on the Boxee Box.

I think for the vast majority of people, playing files of that nature will not be required.

-KeithP

 

[gigahertz20]

I have not seen a pc output that is better than the sigma boxes and often the sigma looks better than pc output because the decoding and deblocking engines are implemented differently.

The Anandtech review of the WD TV Live Plus did not give it high marks for picture quality compared to a HTPC.....just saying.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3830/wd-tv-live-plus-western-digitals-latest-media-player-reviewed/8

 

[Emulex]

how good is the scaler on the wdtv live plus compared to say a HD 5450?

 

[Modelworks]

The Anandtech review of the WD TV Live Plus did not give it high marks for picture quality compared to a HTPC.....just saying.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3830/wd-tv-live-plus-western-digitals-latest-media-player-reviewed/8

Yeah I saw that. The points they took off for are interlaced content which isn't an issue for most content now.
The other stuff about not playing every possible codec combination that exist isn't surprising because even pc have problems with some content. As long as the files are to spec it will play them.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Yeah I saw that. The points they took off for are interlaced content which isn't an issue for most content now.

Unless you record liveTV off OTA or something. Then its all almost interlaced content.