Boxee: All in one Perfect Media Center Solution for Windows Linux & Mac
How many times have we tried managing our huge multimedia collection? I have around 2TB of Media which includes Movies, TV Shows and Music Videos so, was trying different Software to organize library with proper Media info. Boxee is one of the promising solution.
To start with, and tell you what Boxee is, in one line, then Boxee is a media center application that scans and tags all your media from IMDB with subtitles support from opensubtitles.org. Good thing is it’s a cross platform and is natively supported on Linux, Windows and Macintosh.
It has plenty of worthy features to check out. Let’s get an overview of it by scrolling down with screenshots:
On first start, Boxee will scan complete hard Disk for media files and will try to list the files according to it’s own intelligence and getting info from IMDB. This scan time depends on your size of your Media Library; It took 2 hours to scan my system.
Main screen just after logging in to your account. Featured Tab fetches content from pre-defined sources like Netflix, Colleghumor, etc. Category wise tabs for your Media is given at top for fast access.
Browsing Hard Disk is a breeze with inbuilt File Browser for Media Files. This is helpful in case, some files are not listed automatically in Boxee library (maybe because of bad filename) So, you can add them manually.
This is how Movie Library looks alongwith Information and Thumbnails of selected movie. Information includes movie poster thumbnails, parental rating, plot, star rating, cast, director etc.
Hover your mouse to the left of the screen to reveal the library management menu that allows you to organise and search the library as well as define new sources for the library.
First scan may have not identified some files correctly. So, you can manually specify proper name and file could be identified and placed in library in organized manner.
Here, “Add Parts” is an interesting option. Sometimes we have a single movie comprising of 2-3 files depending on the size. This is where you can add those files so that multiple part files of the same movie are tagged together.
Even TV shows can be sorted according to season.
It’s not just Media Organizer but also consist of inbuilt Media Player with various Audio and Video Settings to configure while playback.
Inbuilt Subtitle search feature lets you download subtitles for Movies and TV shows in language you prefer.
Last but not least and which everyone will love to use. Boxee lets you share What you are watching on Social Networks instantly right from Player interface.
Download Boxee – You need to signup and obtain download link.
Thanks Ajitem Sahasrabuddhe [ @GreatDharmatma ] for the tip!
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Thanks. very nice review
looks great
where can we download it
Looks like I forgot to add that while lost in Screenshots. Thanks for reminding Rohan, I have updated the post with download link.
Thanks for sharing. I hope it will work with Ubuntu.. Where is the download link ?
Yes, It will work with Ubuntu too. Download link is given at the end of article.
@Rohit
Thanks you for such a valuable information. I googled this kind software to last few months. Finally i got it.
but I have all movies/music are in portable HDD. i want organize its. Boxee is Not portable. is there any alternate of boxee which can provide same services with portability.
Even though the files are stored in Portable HDD. When you connect them to PC where Boxeed is installed, they can be indexed. Even I have movies and TV shows in 2 External Portable Hard Disks and they were indexed manually.
Boxee is essentially not portable but it is very easy to make it portable. Whenever you want to move a Boxee installation, just copy the C:\Users\Your User Name\AppData\Roaming\BOXEE folder along with its installation file and all your media.
At the remote computer, install BOXEE, paste the BOXEE folder C:\Users\Your User Name\AppData\Roaming\ and enjoy your organized media.
To access AppData folder on your PC, go to start -> run (or windows key + R) and type %AppData% in the Run Dialog Box. Hit Ok.
Hope this helps.
Also, there is another bit of sad news. Boxee launched its last desktop version (1.5) about 2 months ago. Now they are working only on the hardware Boxee Box and have stopped the furthur development of the desktop client.
Therefore, download link for Boxee cannot be found on their website. For new users who want to use boxee, kindly register on http://www.boxee.tv and download one of the versions from links below.
Boxee Mac
0.94277 – https://github.com/downloads/bartsidee/boxee-packages/boxee-0.9.4277.dmg
0.1.5.0 – https://github.com/downloads/bartsidee/boxee-packages/boxee-1.5.0.23596-2bcda77.dmg
Boxee Windows
0.923 – https://github.com/downloads/bartsidee/boxee-packages/boxee-0.9.23.15885.exe
1.5.0 – https://github.com/downloads/bartsidee/boxee-packages/boxee-1.5.0.23596-2bcda77.exe
Boxee Linux
0.922 – https://github.com/downloads/bartsidee/boxee-packages/boxee-0.9.22.13692.i486.modfied.deb
1.5.0 – https://github.com/downloads/bartsidee/boxee-packages/boxee-1.5.0.23596-2bcda77.i486.deb
Boxee SourceCode
1.5.0 – https://github.com/downloads/bartsidee/boxee-packages/boxee-sources-1.5.0-80d5f5b.tar.xz
0.9.23 – https://github.com/downloads/bartsidee/boxee-packages/boxee-1.5.0.23596-2bcda77.exe
Thanks for providing downloading links.