Support for Netflix streaming video has finally made its way to Boxee&'s set-top box, the company announced today in a blog post.
Netflix support was the most common user request for the Boxee Box, the company said, and for good reason. The feature wasn&'t available when the Box started shipping in November &8212' at the time Boxee said that it would be available by the end of 2010. Obviously, it missed that deadline, and it also missed another deadline it set for the end of January when support for Vudu video rentals was added.
With Netflix and Vudu support, the Boxee Box now has a bigger selection of streaming video content than when it launched &8212' but it may be too little too late to make it a viable competitor against Roku&'s streaming boxes, the Apple TV, or even Google TV. Boxee actually had Netflix support up and running during the Consumer Electronics Show early last month, but the company apparently had a tough time ironing out the bugs.
Even though Boxee first announced the Box &8212' which is built by D-Link &8212' in December of 2009, it didn&'t make its way to users until almost a year later. Hardware issues, including a switch from Nvidiaa4‚¬a4„s Tegra chip to Intela4‚¬a4„s Atom, likely led to the delayed release.
To get access to the Netflix feature on the Boxee Box, you&'ll either need to manually update via the Settings menu, or wait for the automatic update to land within the next 24 hours.
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Companies: Boxee, Netflix
People: Avner Ronen
Companies: Boxee, Netflix
People: Avner Ronen
Devindra Hardawar is VentureBeat's lead mobile writer and East Coast correspondent. He studied philosophy at Amherst College, worked in IT support for several years, and has been writing about technology since 2004. He now lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can reach him at devindra@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @Devindra.
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