Jim Lynch: Off the Top of My Head…

Here are some instructions on how to upgrade your Apple TV by installing Boxee. I have not done this yet but I think I got an email from Boxee inviting me to their alpha so I may try it at some point.

This is a guide that, if followed, will unchain your Apple TV from its cruel iTunes tether, turning it into the useful living room conduit of music, video and web-based content it should have been all along via the media center software Boxee. Boxee can be installed fairly easily via the ATV’s USB port to bring Hulu and Comedy Central streaming, playback of any video or music file anywhere on your network in virtually any file type imagineable, and a bevy of internet A/V sources like Flickr, Last.fm, NPR and BBC podcasts and tons of others—all upping the usefulness and fun of Apple’s notoriously underachieving box by a factor of 10, easily. If you have an ATV, Boxee is a must-install, and it’s 100% free. Let’s get started.

The stock Apple TV has never been able to decide what it’s supposed to do. Is it a device to store all your videos? Its built-in hard drive would suggest yes, but the fact that everything needs to be piped through iTunes makes this a hassle if you store your videos in any other way. And why are we downloading and storing anyway? Streaming is the way things are headed, and for streaming, Apple TV doesn’t make a ton of sense, especially when a box a quarter its size and a less than half its price can bring Netflix’s massive library into your living room with zero download delays and zero added cost, soon in HD, even.

Aside from adding the golden goose of Hulu streaming, Boxee’s other main advantage is freeing your Apple TV from its direct connection with your iTunes library. No longer will it be necessary to convert all of your video files into iTunes compatible formats to get them to your TV—Boxee will let your Apple TV read just about any video codec you can throw at it (full list of codecs here – only thing it chokes on is 1080p video; 720p works fine) from any computer or network-attached storage device on your network, or read files off the Apple TV’s own hard disk—all while leaving the default OS untouched and 100% functional. So let’s do this.

Apple TV as it exists today is a bit of a disappointment. Boxee seems to have quite a bit to offer to the Apple TV user and it’s shocking to me that Apple doesn’t copy some of the functionality. I said in a column for ExtremeTech recently that Apple is still too hung up on selling downloads instead of streaming and that’s why it lags behind Boxee in some ways.

One other thing I found interesting about all of this is that YouTube and Hulu have the potential to negatively affect Apple’s movie rentals and downloads. After all if you can watch TV shows and movies for free on your computer or TV (with a bit of advertising in them) are you going to buy them, download them, and store them on a local hard disk?

I suspect that Apple runs the risk of getting screwed if it doesn’t begin to offer some sort of ad-based streaming service. Apple’s entire content business is based on people buying the content and downloading it. But what if a significant portion of Apple’s market decides it would rather watch streaming video for free?

Perhaps I’m being a bit paranoid here but is Apple even paying attention to this? They’ve bundled YouTube onto the iPhone which is a good idea from the user’s standpoint but what happens when YouTube starts offering free movies and TV shows streamed onto people’s iPhones? Why would anybody buy the movie or TV show from Apple when they can stream whatever they want for free?

Yooohoo Apple? Are you paying attention? Something wicked this way comes and it might just eat up a lot of your iTunes content sales.

Somebody wake Steve Jobs up before it’s too late.

Post back here if you upgrade your Apple TV with Boxee. I’d be interested in knowing how you like it once it’s all complete.

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