Guest post by Desiree Gamotin
Digital media box, media extender, digital media adapter, media streamer, Internet TV adapters – whatever you want to call it, they all offer relatively the same service, allowing you to stream online videos and other digital media via Internet onto your television screen.
A new generation of game changers are attempting to perfect the infamously flawed video streaming boxes: Apple TV, Boxee and Roku. But why bother with these boxes when I have my trusty computer to handle all my media viewing needs?
We’ve been forced into the era of over-sharing: everything from our trivial status updates and blog posts to our Foursquare locations to last night’s party photos. So why not more videos and more television shows in the comfort of our own living room – the original venue for sharing content with the people close to us.
What separates each digital media box is obviously its unique features. And depending on what you want from a system, each box is suitable to serve that purpose, though they’re all still essentially similar.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
Apple TV is preferred by any loyal Mac fanatic for its sleek design and familiar interface. If you find that your 14-inch laptop doesn’t fully encompass the quality of your travel photos on Flickr, blow it up on your flatscreen TV, as Apple TV allows you to use multimedia like Flickr, YouTube and Vimeo in high definition. Best of all, you could even play content from your iPhones or iPads on your TV through this digital box.
How it fails? Apple TV is the hipster version of the digital streaming box – it has great style but is limited to what it knows and loves best: iTunes. That means no buying videos from Amazon Instant Video, (available only for Roku), no music streaming from MOG or Rdio, no other streaming sources of the World Wide Web. Apple TV was designed with iTunes content in mind, so if you’re not an avid buyer of movies, TV shows and music through your iTunes, slowly back away now.
Image by William Hook
Boxee takes the cake for its major social networking component that enables users to view, rate and recommend content to friends. Since it requires a registered account, users can follow the activity of other fellow Boxee users with the option of publicly recommending movie/television content. You can also monitor your Facebook and Twitter accounts on your TV screen and play media from your own local network. Bonus points for an interface that’s pleasing to the eyes.
How it fails? Strangely enough, the one downfall potential users can’t seem to get over is Boxee’s lack of the super popular video-streaming service, Hulu Plus. For monster streamers like myself, not having Hulu on Boxee is a deal-breaker. Where else would I go to for random clips and good quality videos when YouTube isn’t there to save me?
Image by Mattnad, from Wikimedia Commons
As far as which box seems closest to attaining true digital entertainment nirvana, Roku is an Internet browsing-lover’s dream. More than 300 channels? Check. Live NHL, UFC and NBA? Check. Video playback and instant replays? Check. Having had great reviews all around, Roku is incomparable for its incredible range of media content including Hulu Plus, Amazon and Internet music services like MOG and Rdio. Plus it’s even cheaper than the others.
Where it fails? The biggest drawback for Roku is that it’s not Apple TV – in that it doesn’t play local media from iTunes nor can it stream from your iOS device of choice. As a religious Mac user, sometimes I go into panic mode when my interface looks too different from my familiar Apple apps. Roku also can’t play content protected with Apple’s DRM and that’s a huge limitation for me.
The infinite horse race for best Internet streaming boxes for TV is becoming more intense and the choices can appear overwhelming. With the advent of television shows “On Demand” and the plethora of PVR devices, we seem to be collecting more digital boxes (and remote controls) in order to build the ultimate multimedia viewing experience within our living rooms. But with great media streaming power comes great responsibility. We’re not just sitting passively on our couches watching television shows – we’re searching for them and interactively engaging in what we see even moreso than on our computers. Though boxes still have a long way to go to perfection, we may be seeing a sneak preview into the future of Connected TV.
