Digital Home Thoughts: Boxee Alpha Comes To Windows

"The latest release also introduces a handful of attention-getting web apps like MLB.tv, officially supported and offering full access to baseball games around the country. Others, like Current TV, Digg, some clever Twitter/Tumblr mashups and niche video sources, came from the providers themselves or the just-ended dev challenge."

Boxee has made quite a name for itself, though with my desktop PCs running Windows (I have a couple of Linux servers, and I cannot afford Macs) I've been standing on the sidelines, looking longingly at the media player. Finally, a Windows client has arrived, though it is very much an alpha version. After playing with it for a few hours, I find the interface quite pleasant and more intuitive than Windows Media Center or those which come on media playerback devices like the WD TV. I had no problems immediately accessing content, both locally and on the net, though being in Canada, I did hit a few roadblocks with several applications telling me that I'm not allowed to watch Babylon 5 of Macgyver. The alphaness of the Windows client also shone through in some places with some spawned programs crashing, but overall, its been pretty pleasant experience. I would like to see some more customization options, and some regional presets so that if some applications cannot be accessed from where you are, it does not display them. I can only hope that as more content becomes available online to Canadians that Boxee will dedicate enough resources to add some polish, or I'll have to look towards setting up yet another computer just for media playback!