Currently cable companies must deliver broadcast channels in a way that enables tuners like Boxee Live TV (and the ones in your TV) to display those channels without any extra hardware.

Now the cable companies are asking the FCC to change the rules and turn access off. Their main excuse being that it will reduce the need for the cable guy to drive to your house to disconnect your cable and thus be better for the environment. Considering this ruling would also mean millions more set top boxes and cable cards are manufactured, distributed, and attached to electric outlets (see below for consumption), their argument doesn’t hold water. It’s akin to a cable executive taking a private jet to an FCC meeting, but insisting on having recycled toilet paper on-board to help save the environment.

The cable companies are losing subscribers every quarter. If they want to reverse that trend they should look into building better products, reducing prices and improving customer service, not going to the government asking for rule changes to force consumers into spending more money and blocking start-ups from competing.

There is another interesting thing about the proposed rule-making. There are no benefits for consumers. None. Millions of users who currently connect cable directly to their TV or tuner (without a set top box) will see their screens go dark. To bring back the signal they will need to go pick up a box or schedule a visit from the cable guy… with the extra “benefit” of having to pay a monthly fee for that new box…

As Public Knowledge noted in their blog post on Monday, this is an issue the government should take its time to understand and get right.

At Boxee, we’ve created an affordable alternative to cable that’s more in-tune with the way people watch TV today. The cable companies don’t like the idea of increased competition and in this case they are trying to get the government to help them block alternative devices such as the Boxee Box.

The Cable companies spent more than $50 million last year on lobbying, so we decided to spend a few hundred dollars on a train to D.C to meet with the FCC.

The FCC is in charge of regulating the monopolistic cable industry, ensuring consumers’ interests are being protected and fostering innovation and competition in the market. Avoiding the visibility of proposed legislation that dogged SOPA and PIPA, the cable companies are trying to sneak in an anti-consumer, anti-competitive policy change, telling the FCC that it is only a minor technical thingy and that only few consumers and companies would be affected.

In contrast, we demoed Boxee Live TV and presented a few slides to the Commission explaining how this could affect many consumers and have an impact on innovation and the environment.  We were excited that the Chairman of the FCC and his staff took the time to listen to our arguments.

The FCC is also paying attention to what consumers are saying. It would be great if you could write a short note to the FCC expressing your concern about having to give even more money each month to your cable company. Please take a couple of minutes to make your voice heard!

To mark the occasion, Boxee threw a Superbowl BBQ Blowout… We taught Flip Cup in the boardroom (how appropriate), Beer Pong in the Ping Pong Room, and our now famous Boxee 200″ screen showing the game in the amphitheater complete with . We had Pulled Pork and Brisket Sliders as well as 300 wings courtesy of our friends at Atomic Wings.  The only thing more delicious than the wings was the sweet taste of victory for the mighty Giants.  At one stage we had the game running on 3 TV’s all running Boxee Live TV over both QAM and ATSC.

Earlier in the week, we challenged you all to throw a better party than us, Our photos are below. If you think you topped it be sure to send your photos to feature@boxee.tv for your chance to win.

 OUR BOXEE SUPERBOWL CAKE

BRISKET FROM DAN DELANEY

300 WINGS FROM ATOMIC WINGS ON DISPLAY…TOP THAT IF YOU CAN!!

WHO’S THAT OLD LADY?!

ELI MANNING!

COMING DOWN TO THE WIRE….

200″ SCREEN BROUGHT TO YOU BY BOXEE LIVE TV

Prizes will be awarded for:

1. Biggest Party – Custom designed Boxee Live TV shirts for you and everyone we can see in the party photograph.
2. Best Dressed Fan – Awesome Boxee Super Fan Hoodie and “Dippin Dots” T-Shirt
3. Most Original Superbowl Food – Boxee T-Shirt & Stickers (must submit the recipe along with photos so we can taste test)

ATOMIC WINGS…AWESOME STUFF

 HILL COUNTRY BBQ

All three winners will also score seats of honor at our SXSW Kegger in Austin. You must be over 21 and find your own way there and back, we don’t want to be stuck with you after the party, unless you’re an android developer…

How To Enter:

• Throw a party with at least 5 people watching the Superbowl this Sunday 5/2
• Stream the game over the internet or with the Boxee Live TV Dongle
• Take Photos/Videos relevant to the above prizes showing evidence of the game inthe background
• Send all entries to feature@boxee.tv with the subject ‘Boxee Superbowl Party‘
• We’ll pick winners on Wednesday of next week and announce them here on the blog.

Rock On!!!!

We hosted a group of 33 (30 Giants fans, 3 49er Fans) for a night of live sport, Fette Sau BBQ and a keg of Blue Point Toasted Lager that we threw in for good measure. The game was broadcast live and in glorious HD on a 200 inch screen using our little black Boxee Box and the new Live TV Dongle.

View from the Back

Half-Time entertainment came courtesy of Sumo Suit fights between oppositely sized, yet fiercely competitive adversaries. You can check out more photos and video here and share your predictions for the big game next month.

DEFENSE!!!!

In the meantime, you should also go order a Live TV tuner (boxee.tv/live ) so you can add broadcast TV to Boxee.

Oh and Go Giants at Superbowl XLVI!!

Photo Licensed under Creative Commons from Slideshow Bruce

Besides doing a meetup in each one of these cities we’d like to meet and talk with users, students, and developers. Keeping with the tradition of a relaxed backyard party for a few hundred people… we’ll be throwing a  kegger in Austin with great BBQ again – start getting your stupid human tricks ready : )

With this in mind, we need some help from Boxee fans out there. Please leave a comment if you can help with any of the items below:

• Venue for meetup in each city – if you live in Washington DC, Memphis or Dallas and have an idea for a venue (bar, big office, club, university) that can host ~ 100 people
• A fixer – in each of these cities would be great if we would have a local “fixer” that can help secure the venue, arrange for drinks, food, sound system and in general be able to hustle.
• Great stops along the way – any good ideas for must-stop spots along on our way. this is our current drive plan: http://b0x.ee/zzh3FE.
• Bail agent –  as a cab driver in vegas once told me “when in a new town, it’s always good to have a phone number for a good bail agent”

On the morning of March 5th we will pick up a GMC Yukon (or something similar Hertz tells us) and get going. We will drive it like a rental, play loud music, moon fellow travelers, eat greasy food, stay in cheap motels.  We’ll also be giving out T-shirts, Boxee Boxes by D-Link, Boxee Live TV along the way.

Currently our schedule looks like this (click on a Meetup to RSVP):

March 5th (Mon) – Washington, D.C. Meetup

March 7th (Wed) – Memphis Meetup

March 8th (Thu) – Dallas Meetup

March 9-12th (Fri-Sat) – Drink. Party. Meet with people. Dance.

March 11th (Sun) – The 2nd Annual Boxee SxSW Kegger (1p – 6pm)
If you were there last year you know it was a good time.  We’re going to try and keep the same easy going atmosphere this year so you can just come out and meet good people, have some food, and have a few drinks. We’ll send out more updates as the date gets closer.

March 12th (Mon) – Fly back to NYC. Start cleansing process.

We look forward to seeing you there!

- Team Boxee

With the addition of Live TV, the Boxee Box holds the distinction of being the only mainstream set top box that blends both over the air (OTA) broadcast TV with Internet content (over the top or OTT). We believe the OTT+OTA combo is the best way to get the most entertainment while paying only for the stuff you want to watch.

If you missed our earlier posts on Live TV / Cutting the Cord, and our Facebook integration – the gist goes something like this: the way we want to watch video has drastically changed over the last 10 years.  We want to devour seasons all at once.  We want to watch the same video on our TV, tablet, phone, and treadmill.  We want to be able to watch in our homes, on an airplane, in our offices, and wherever else we might end up.  We want to bookmark things for later.  We want mainstream shows along with stuff from the web like TED, WSJ, and FunnyOrDie.

The web has given us this freedom.  Cable TV has not.  The web has made it easy and affordable to find what you’re looking for and enjoy it wherever you’d like.  Meanwhile cable’s pushing the same boring interface and charging you even more for it ($75 / month on average) while you’re really only watching 14% of the channels you’re paying for.   There’s a percentage of the population that’s realized this and decided to cut the cord and get rid of cable.

Boxee Live TV is a perfect alternative to cable for them.

Live TV Features

Way better than just plugging the included antenna into the back of your TV, Boxee Live TV kicks it up a notch with:

• Social Channel Listings – We’ll show you what’s on, what your friends are watching, and how many people total are watching a show as you flip through channels.
• Sharing – Share the traditional Boxee way on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr AND you can now passively share to Facebook using our Live TV Timeline App – turn sharing on and whatever you’re tuned into will post to your Facebook ticker automatically.  It’s easy to switch off too so your friends don’t need to know about your addiction to HSN.
• Edit Channels - Quickly hide channels from your lineup that don’t speak your language or have pissed you off with bad programming decisions like taking Arrested Development off the air.  Easily rename WNDHCTA 7.2 to NBC.
• All-In-One Interface – done watching a show on broadcast, easily jump into more episodes from the web. It’s the best of both worlds all on the same remote.

While Live TV does not currently have DVR functionality, we’ve heard your feedback and are examining if we could provide it.  We’ll make an announcement later this year about DVR support if we can make it happen.

Boxee v1.5 Features

Here’s what’s included in the latest version of Boxee (check out pictures here):

• New UI look and feel
• Improved search
• New library screens with simpler filtering
• Browser Pop-up management
• Rotten Tomatoes integration
• On-Device Social Account Pairing

We’ll stagger this release over the next 72 hours like we’ve done in the past so you might not get the update until later this week. Want it right away, check out these instructions in the forums on how to get it.
You can read the full release notes here.

Enjoy and let us know what you think of the new UI after you’ve played with it!

Cheers,

Team Boxee

Today at CES, we’re announcing a new Facebook app to extend Live TV beyond your living room and onto your Facebook Timeline.

Boxee was built from the ground up to allow you to share with friends and receive video recommendations from them.  With a Boxee Box & Live TV there’s nearly an infinite amount of video to watch.  To help you sift through it all, we’re taking social one step further.

Boxee is one of the first TV apps to let you share what you’re watching on your Timeline and to help you sort through what’s on.  The new TV app for Facebook Timeline will make it easy to discover new video with friends and share the experience with them. Let me show you what we’re talking about.

Home Screen
We’ve added links to the standard menu to launch the Browser and Live TV (once you’ve attached the dongle). We also gave the featured section a small facelift.

Menu
The Menu is now more accessible, popping up as an overlay that lets you quickly navigate between different sections or search. we also optimized search to minimize the number of clicks.

Movies & TV Shows
We updated the layout of Movies and TV Shows for easier navigation by Genre and Source as well as providing quick access to trailers.

There is also a new Movie details screen with extended synopsis and cast & crew information. For TV Shows it is now much easier to jump between seasons and see which episodes you already watched.

Watch Later & Friends
We expanded the thumbnails in Watch Later & Friends sections and now let you filter between clips, TV Shows and Movies.

PC Update
As many of you know we have been working on new versions for PC, Mac and Ubuntu. Today we are releasing a version of 1.5 for these platforms.

You can find this new version of Boxee for Mac, Windows, and Linux below:

• Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
• Mac OS X 10.6+ (Intel only)
• Ubuntu 11.10 (32 bit)

As a platform, we have been able to bring Boxee for Computers to about 85% of the Boxee Box in terms of features and functionality. Due to extensive DRM and certification requirements premium apps will not be available on the downloadable version of Boxee, most notably Netflix, VUDU, and Pandora (click here for a full list).

However, if you are using Boxee for file playback you should be pleasantly surprised with better file support, a new on screen display, better networking support, and a host of other features you can read about here.

Growing Past the PC

This 1.5 release will be the last version of Boxee for PC/Mac/Ubuntu. It will be available on Boxee.tv through the end of January.

We believe the future of TV will be driven by devices such as the Boxee Box, Connected TVs / Blu-Rays and 2nd screen devices such as tablets and phones. While there are still many users who have computers connected to their TVs, we believe this use case is likely to decline as users find better alternatives. People will continue to watch a lot of video on their computer, but it is more likely to be a laptop than a home-theater PC and probably through a browser rather than downloaded software.

To our computer users… to those who have come out to our NYC and SF meetups, talked with us at Engadget, GDGT, and Giz Gallery events, or enjoyed Austin BBQ with us during SxSW, or simply messaged with us on Facebook, Twitter, and our forums… thank you for all your support – we would not be where we are today without you. But we can’t stay here.

We are excited about the upcoming release of Boxee Live TV and our new product roadmap for 2012. If you are a current Boxee user on a computer we hope that you will enjoy 1.5 and maybe when you are ready to retire that good ol’ HTPC/Mac Mini you will decide to get a Boxee Box.

Sincerely,
Team Boxee

After 3 vigorous rounds of voting, and lobbying that carried on late into Friday night.  We have our clear winners of the Boxee Sticker Design contest. In first place is Josh McGee who made the beast of a Cut the Cord propaganda poster posted above.

Coming in a close second was Danica’s Boxee Pop.  With the amount of soda this office churns through it was inevitable that this awesome image would find a place near and dear to our hearts.

Third Place goes to the Boxee pancake stack made by Kyle Kendrick, which will go well with the Boxee sandwich that’s already on the back of most of our laptops.

Two honorable mentions that we have to shout out here is the ridiculously awesome Boxee cat, drawn by an 11 year old user who’s going to make a killer graphic designer some day:

And this one submitted by a user outside the US that was a personal favorite of a few members of the team.

Thanks so much to everyone who submitted designs.  We had a ton of fun seeing what all of our users came up with.  Hopefully we’ll be doing a few more contests like this in the not too distant future.  Check out our Facebook page to see more of the entries, let us know which one’s your favorite!