Boxee ditches Tegra for Atom - pre-order opens in US and UK

VOD set-top-box finally ready for launch

Boxee ditches Tegra for Atom - pre-order opens in US and UK

13 September 2010 17:08 GMT / By Rik Henderson

Boxee has moved across to an Intel Atom CE4100 processor from an Nvidia Tegra 2 chip for higher bitrates during 1080p playback. And with its launch slated for November, parent company D-Link is about to start accepting pre-orders through Amazon.com in the States, Amazon.co.uk in the UK.

The set-top-box, which Pocket-lint first trialled at CES 2010 back in January, uses the company's proprietary desktop software to pull free video and media content from the Internet or a DLNA-compatible server or PC. It has a massive compatibility list - capable of munching on MKVs like they were ginger snaps - and carries 802.11n compliant Wi-Fi on board so that you can stream HD vids without having to hook it up to a LAN hub.

With the new processor in place, Boxee can handle 1080p H.264 playback at 60fps, plus it's more than capable with Flash 10.1 (hardware accelerated) and HTML5.

Costing around $229 in the US, £199 in the UK, the new box can even be expanded using the hundreds of apps that are currently available on the platform, including VOD services from the BBC (iPlayer), Channel 4, and MTV Music.

Check out www.boxee.tv for more details on pre-orders.

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