Boxee Finally Hits Windows, Adds MLB.TV And More

Wow, can you believe it? At long last, Boxee is on Windows. It's sort of strange how one of the world's most popular applications first arrived on Mac, then Linux and on Windows last, but at least the world's most popular operating system can now run the program natively. In what we're considered the company's most significant announcement to date, Boxee has introduced an Alpha version of Boxee for Windows, and it's taking feedback as we speak in order to push out a finalized version as soon as possible ("later this year").


Moving forward, the company hopes to keep updates and upgrades in sync between Windows, Mac and Ubuntu users. Additionally, Boxee has landed a big-time deal with Major League Baseball, with MLB.TV Premium arriving to Boxee users. In other words, Boxee users now have access to thousands of MLB games live and on-demand in HD (where available, naturally), and there's even the ability to play, pause and rewind the game.


Of note, the newest Boxee boasts a revamped navigation panel that looks to be much cleaner and more streamlined, making it easier for users to segragate Web content from local material. Continuing on, Boxee has announced integrated support for Digg and Tumblr, not to mention Current and 1080p support for Ubuntu users with NVIDIA graphics. The full list of bug fixes is listed below. Now, go on and get yourself a copy if you've been missing out on Windows!

Major Changes with this Version Since Public Release

• Improved playback of Internet streams.
• Introduced VDPAU hardware acceleration on nVIDIA GPUs under Linux (major kudos to Team XBMC for this one).
• Fixed M4A and M4V playback support.
• Fixed low volume during video playback under Mac OSX and AppleTV.
• Performance improvement and lower CPU usage under Mac OSX.
• Enhanced codec support, improving overall playback of all media.
• Improved DVD playback.
• Official Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jacklope support.
• PulseAudio support under Linux (shaky, but works).
• MP3 files indexed based on id3 tags.

More Changes with this Version

• Sorting ignores “The” at the beginning of a movie title.
• Fixed uploading avatar at http://app.boxee.tv.
• Improved slideshow controls in pictures.
• Fixed avatars, first name, last name not updating in login screen.
• CNN application displays runtime and date/time published for each item.
• Selecting a Screensaver Slideshow Folder no longer causes a hang.
• Empty Settings Pictures Library tab.
• No longer show password when adding SMB source.
• Fixed crash when setting Interlaced Handling to Deinterlace.
• Fixed default download path under Download > Settings (Linux).
• Fixed some Internet videos failure due to “Error creating demuxer”.
• Fixed fast forward and rewind not working from MCE remote.
• Fixed click on Read More or Settings from OSD causes Boxee to freeze.
• Fixed case of Flickr contact getting deleted unexpectedly.
• Fixed changing the weather location not converting the number.
• Fixed pasting a long URL into new feed dialog exceeding the dialog boundaries.
• Fixed Screensaver Preview crashes.
• Fixed Windows clipboard for other applications stops to responding after a paste in keyboard dialog.
• Fixed ability to change the visualization preset when playing a song.
• Fixed Jamendo application showing release date as 1970-01-01
• Fixed missing mouse cursor on Boxee startup.
• Fixed missing OSD buttons when playing a video from Browse menu
• Fixed case of multiple instance of Boxee running
• Fixed first attempt to Add Contact under Flickr and Picasa failing with script error
• Fixed skip or stop playing an Apple Trailer causing a crash
• and several more…

Not Supported

• 64bit platforms are not officially supported.
• Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 is no longer officially supported.
• Microsoft default OpenGL driver is not supported, download proper driver from your respective hardware vendor, e.g. http://www.intel.com, http://www.nvidia.com, http://ati.amd.com.
• Power PC (PPC) not supported.