[TomJensen]

All the recent talk about Boxee has gotten me interested in set-top boxes and what they can do. Looks like there's a bunch of them coming down the pipe, all offering free online vids (essentially same as Boxee), and all pretty cheap (US$100-200). Here's one for the VuNow VN1000HD, which realistically will cost $150, since you'd want all the codecs. Connectivity includes ext USB drive, wired Ethernet, WiFi, (no keyboard support yet), so looks to be exactly what Boxee is aspiring toward.

http://techvideoblog.com/reviews/vunow-v...i-def-pod/

The video review is pretty (unintentionally) funny, and not only because the guy's English is a little off. The text review has all the relevant specs; watch the video to see how the interface works. Some aspects are similar to XBMC. But they have a working virtual keyboard.

[kizer]

You need a rooter to access the net

Here is a Divx box built by those guys that well build Divx boxes.

Hahaha

[kizer]

All seriousness its pretty cool. I'd like xbmc to have that simple interface which allows you to grab all those different channels. Sure we have several plugins, but it would be nice to have an interface that blends them all together to look like it they where meant to work as one.

[TomJensen]

I'm impressed by its tiny size and low cost. Other than that, it looks to be in beta stage, as lots of functions/features are still missing. I think many of these types of boxes will be available through your favorite Chinese/eBay vendor toward the later part of the year. It should be fun.

I see this box, with emphasis on online media, as catering toward casual users, whereas XBMC, with emphasis on organizing offline media, is more toward the tech crowd--if only because it still takes some tech familiarity to either rip from DVDs or to download warezed AVs from online. I see this reflected in XBMC's UI as well, with lots of branching options and pop-up menus, whereas this thing is more like a TV menu.