D-Link to Ship $200 Boxee Set-Top Device in Q2

The cube-shaped, Linux-based product ($200) will feature an SD slot, WiFi, two USB connectors and HDMI. Other specs, including the set-top’s storage capacity, the processor supplier and the chip’s clock speed weren’t disclosed. But Rosen told us the set-top will use a processor from a “name brand supplier.” Boxee worked with Nvidia to make its service compatible with the graphics chip supplier’s Ion platform that’s in Acer’s AspireRevo and Hewlett-Packard’s Mini 311 netbooks. Boxee’s interface requires “tens of megabytes” for storage, company officials have said. Boxee will be showing off the set-top at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas during CES.

“We had conversations with media and cable companies and they were intrigued, but it’s going to be a while before they are comfortable with this,” Rosen said. D-Link was the “most aggressive” in pursuing an agreement, he told us. Boxee began discussions with potential partners in January before landing on home gateway and router supplier D-Link, Rosen said. The alliance could open the door for Boxee to use D- Link’s distribution network including Best Buy and most other major retailers.

The set-top will be used to demonstrate the video service’s capabilities, with a goal of eventually having the software built into TVs, Blu-ray players and other products, Rosen said. Boxee and Universal Pictures have created a promotional trailer for the video service for the coming movie The Wolfman, with “behind-the-scenes” information in addition to a preview, a Boxee spokesman said. The movie will be released Feb. 12.

The set-top will have an Ethernet port and contain Boxee’s browser, but “surfing the net won’t be a popular application” for the device, Rosen said. About 300 applications have been developed for Boxee, roughly half user-generated, since the company started a developer program this year, Rosen said. The set-top will be packaged with an RF remote. D-Link subcontracted the set-top’s design to Astro, which created the cube shape to distinguish the device from competing products, including those from Apple, Roku, Vudu and others, Rosen said. Astro also designed Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Alienware’s gaming PCs.

Boxee didn’t say which of its content providers would have product available. It has alliances with Sony’s Crackle, Last.fm and Flickr and highlighted new partnerships with Clicker and The Escapist. The Escapist is an online videogames news and reviews site that serves as a “community” for the category. Clicker’s Internet video directory, which started in beta in September, was ported to the Boxee platform Thursday, company officials said. Clicker maintains a directory of about 450,000 streaming TV shows and episodes and is designed to be controlled with a remote. But Boxee won’t have access to Clicker’s entire database, which includes Hulu. Boxee has battled with Hulu over access to its programming. Boxee developed a workaround despite licensing issues, but it’s not the fully authorized interface it once had. The Boxee Set-top also will provide access to Netflix to users who have accounts with it. Netflix isn’t compatible with Linux, but Boxee will develop an application that is, Rosen said.

As it unveiled hardware plans, Boxee also launched a four-week beta test of a new version of its software. The software was revamped to better organize the service’s content by category and add search capability. Movies and TV programs are now organized both in a general “library” and by user preferences. Boxee also is working with Last.fm and Pandora to similarly classify online music, Rosen said. And there’s a “my applications” tab for storing preferred applications. Boxee was previously a mix of 40 content sources, many with their own interfaces and search functions.

The new interface also moves Boxee’s main menu to the center of the Web page, replacing it along the right side with a queue for storing user content. The main menu doubles as space to promote new content and applications that “we're not getting paid for right now,” Rosen said.

Eighty-five percent of Boxee users access the service with a Macintosh and a smaller proportion use Ubuntu’s Linux operating system, but the video service is “becoming friendlier to Windows users,” Rosen said. Boxee developed an application for netbook PCs that uses Microsoft’s DirectX video accelerator, which allows CPU-intensive applications like motion compensation, deinterlacing and color correction to offloaded to the graphics processor. The most recent version, DXVA 2.0, works with Windows Vista and Windows 7. The new Boxee software doesn’t support Ubuntu’s 64-bit operating system but eventually will, Rosen said.