Apple Movie Junkie

Christmas has come early for some. Here at Apple TV Junkie we had the opportunity to run an early release of the Boxee Beta. For your viewing pleasure we’ve created a video to walk you through some of the major features.

Today Boxee unveils their much anticipated beta (link) and for those that can’t be there in person we have a short video demonstration of it’s new look and feel.

For those of you you haven’t heard, Boxee will be leaving Alpha status and entering into Beta on December 7 at 7pm EST.

Boxee is a cross-platform freeware media center software with a 10-foot user interface and social networking features designed for the living-room TV.  It’s a cross between Facebook and the Apple TV.  Better yet, Boxee can be easily installed onto your Apple TV by creating a USB patchstick and booting from it while still retaining all the original Apple TV functionality like rentals or purchases from iTunes.

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Let me preface this artlice by warning everyone upfront not to upgrade to Apple TV 3.0.

I can’t even claim to have used Apple TV 3.0 so why should I be such an alarmist? Not surprisingly, installing any Apple TV update will wipe out non-Apple features you may have installed like Boxee. The Apple TV without Boxee is just pointless. I suspect many Apple TV junkies rely on Boxee for fundamental media player functionality like the ability to stream from ubiquitous network attached storage (NAS) devices (a must for even modest media libraries) or support fo additional video codecs like DivX.

After reading all the underwhelming reviews of Apple TV 3.0 the most visible of changes is in the user interface. According to reports on the Boxee community forum this new UI appears to be causing problems with the Launcher menu items required for Boxee. Until a new ATV patch stick is available, when you upgrade to Apple TV 3.0 you cannot reinstall Boxee.

Its been over 2.5 years and the Apple TV still doesn’t support streaming from a NAS or additional codecs like DivX. Apple, when are you going to open the platform up for third-party developers to fill the gaps? Updates like Apple TV 3.0 only serves to irritate and frustrate Apple TV junkies as their beloved Apple TV suffers a long slow death into obsurity.

We can only hold solice in the fact that Apple TV junkies are a resourceful group of people determined not to give up. They’ll find a way to update Launcher so Boxee can live, yet again, on our Apple TVs. It’s too bad this coincides with the highly anticipated November release of a new version of Boxee. Regardleas, expect Boxee to continue to impress while ressurecting the Apple TV once again.

You’ve heard rumours of the iMac redesign and now the dwindling inventories of iMacs and Mac Minis.  A refresh of the Mac Mini is imminent.

I’m going to go speculate that the Mac Mini refresh may be the start of a convergence with the Apple TV.  I’m not here to suggest Apple will include TV tuner or capture/record capabilities as this could distract users away from their cash cow iTunes Store for content.  However, as a media playback device, the Apple TV is missing the ability to play my existing DVD collection.  The Mac Mini could become Apple TVs big brother for Apple TV Juinkies that want to de-clutter by eliminating their tradditional DVD player.   A ‘pro’ version of the Apple TV, if you will.

Sound off in the comments and let us know what you think.

I’m batting .556 (almost 56% accuracy) when it comes to predicting Apple TV related news at Apple’s latest “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it” event and that’s a bad thing.

Wrong:  Apple TV will get a price drop and larger capacities.

Correct: Apple TV wont receive any CPU or BluRay updgrades.

Wrong: More studios and networks signing deals to release content on iTunes. Introduction of a Rhapsody-like subscription model for unlimited music.

Wrong: iTunes to support the ability to re-download previously purchased movies and TV shows.

Wrong: For my “one-last thing” I’ll go out on a limb and suggest announcement of an App Store for Apple TV.

Correct: Movies and TV shows from iTunes Store will still contain digital rights management (DRM).

Correct: Still unable to import my DVD collection so I can watch on Apple TV (maybe they’ll try to compromise with a lame DVD sharing feature from PC/Mac).

Correct: Still unable to stream content to Apple TV from my network attached storage (NAS) devices.

Correct: Still unable to play non H.264 content (like DivX/Xvid) on Apple TV.

I know my predictions were kinda lame and loaded for failure (or is that success?), however, this does underline the continued hobby status Apple has given to the Apple TV.  Not a peep… even the iPhone got some lovin’!

Throw us Apple TV Junkies a bone Apple.  The introduction of iTunes Extra for movies would have made the perfect transition to atleast drop mention of this feature coming to the Apple TV.  We’re being relegated to the back woods to die a slow pitiful death.