Boxee - A company that embodies convergence.

Whether you stream Netflix to your laptop or are the type to spend hours watching YouTube and other time-shifted videos, it’s always been a bit of a hassle to get these devices to output great video and sound easily to something more comfortable to watch, like a TV. Nowadays, most flat panel machines have VGA or DVI ports, and many laptops have the same ports to match. The only problem is that once you’ve got it all set up, with your laptop outputting to the TV, the entire thing is hard to control (play/pause, skip, stop) unless you’ve got some fast RF, Bluetooth or other wireless keyboard solution also set up. That’s a LOT of stuff to connect your laptop to just to watch an half hour of TV or so. And even if you’ve got all the cables and equipment, the idea of keeping a mouse and keyboard on the coffee table is less than ideal for most wannabe couch potatoes.

Over the last several years, hardcore digital media users have used HTPCs, or computers which were dedicated to their home theatres, to channel downloaded content onto the big screen. This solution still left many with the keyboard/mouse at the coffee table situation, so at most, it was a hybrid step. Apple released its slimline Apple TV device in 2007 for sale. It fit the paradigm of the couch potato much better, but while it successfully mated iTunes, YouTube, and other social media content providers to the big screen, it was limited in the formats it supported natively, forcing files someone may have ripped from their DVD collection to be encoded to specific formats like MP4 and more important, it was limited in content. Apple TV can’t play content from huge sources like Rhapsody and Amazon’s stores, instead preferring to lock their users into purchasing media from Apple’s own iTunes store alone.

Then Boxee came along.  Through its GUI, Boxee has been an easy way to  turn slim-line devices that people tend to place in their entertainment like the Mac Mini and Apple TV into wonderful dedicated media centers that are open to multiple content channels. What makes Boxee stand out from its competitors though, is that the software contains an integrated social network which allows Boxee software users to share what they’re watching with other Boxee software users, exponentially growing the popularity of sources of online media.

At CES 2010 this year, the software company that’s begun to re-define the digital media experience in American living rooms introduced some hardware. The Boxee Box, a joint venture between Boxee and D-Link,  is designed to be a dedicated hub for all of your digital media, outputting it to the TV and/or accompanying sound system in an easy way that frees the user of the keyboard/mouse paradigm when they’re ready to watch their favourite show or film. The Boxee box is the embodiment of convergence because

Front Image of the Boxee Box (Mashable.com)

not only does the device connect online media to your television, it’s the crossroads of several different online media platforms such as Netflix, MySpace TV, Joost, and the list goes on and on. The Boxee Box also connects people to people, and as said above, it’s there that the device and it’s platform really stand out.

Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, Optical Audio, RCA Audio, and two USB Ports in addition to an SD card slot (iTech News Net)

Want more convergence? The device holds standard PC hardware connections in conjunction with high-end home theatre connections. And then there’s the remote.

Two-Faced Boxee remote. Simple digital media interface on one side, full thumb-based QWERTY KB on the other (Ehomeupgrade.com)

There’s nothing more home theatre than a remote control. Then again, there’s nothing more personal computer oriented than a full qwerty keyboard. D-Link’s device would seem to have it all. Expect a review once one of us gets our hands on it.