anything media

So several years ago I began experimenting with alternatives for tv via computer. I’m old enough to remember when we actually paid for cable because there were no/less commercials. When did we start paying people to advertise to us?

Okay, enough of that rant. I don’t actually remember the names of some of the torrent clients I started playing with years ago, but for my tastes none of them were what I was after. Hulu was a fresh new approach and with my Xbox 360 and Media Mall’s Playon software I could stream their large but often limited library to my home theater projector. It was good. That was until the annoyance of the Playon software losing the connection and failing during the middle of shows outweighed the novelty of it.

Enter Boxee. I’m just beginning to experiment seriously with TV alternatives since I ditched cable for tv this month. Last night’s experiment was my MacBook Pro running Boxee software hooked up to my Sony XBR 32″ tv (amazing picture by the way Sony) and using my iPhone remote for controlling the MBP.

I have to say, it was very impressive. The only disappointments were the lack of subtitles being available (we have a deaf friend staying with us right now) and again, though a large library, big chunks of seasons of shows we wanted to watch missing.

I’ll keep poking around with Boxee and see how it performs. Wish it would hook up through my Xbox 360 to my home theater projector though. (hint hint hint folks at Boxee or some clever media software developer).

I’ll keep recording thoughts from my experiments here on the blog. Please feel free to share your experiences as well as we all work together to foster TV 2.0.