Will Boxee Box Support Hulu?
Hulu and Boxee Box: Will It Happen?
The Boxee Box connects to your television and allows you to stream online videos. This box is small (about five inches deep and wide), allowing you to add it to your current television setup. The Boxee Box was built in conjunction with D-Link and supports full 1080p HD video streaming. It also supports video formats like MPEG-4, Divx and Xvid.
But, many people are asking will this box support videos from the popular site Hulu? This site allows you to watch classic and current television shows. While It’s mostly a free service, it does make you have to pay for certain programs. So will Boxee box support Hulu? Yes, but it will only support Hulu Plus, which requires a monthly subscription fee. You can also stream Netflix videos and movies for the same type of subscription fee.
Hacking Hulu
While this can be a bummer for some people, you may already pay for Hulu if you want to watch certain programs. On the positive side, you’ll move from a small computer screen to your favorite TV, perhaps even a large flat screen TV. As of 2011, you can “hack” the Boxee Box in order to watch your favorite free Hulu content.
The Boxee Box comes with a WebKit-browser. This browser allows you to view standard web content like websites and videos. So, you just need to navigate to Hulu in order to watch your videos. However, Hulu has tried blocking Boxee software. As a result, you’ll have to play around with the service if you do decide to go this route.
If you have an older version of the box, it may not support Hulu Plus. This feature only came out at the beginning of 2011 so you may have to upgrade your box.
Hulu Plus Availability
Hulu has been pushing its Hulu Plus in different arenas due to the popularity of the site and how many people want to watch the content on TVs and mobile devices. As of 2011, Hulu Plus is now available on Sony Bravia HDTVs and Roku. The cooperation between Boxee Box and Hulu will definitely make a lot of users smile.
Other Offerings
The Boxee Box offers more than just support for Hulu. Basically, this box is a direct competitor to similar devices offered by Google TV, Apple TV and Roku XDS. It’s even built on the same platform as Google TV.
As of May 2011, this device sells for around $200, which makes it slightly more expensive than some of the other offerings. But, it is cheaper than Google TV. It has a media center and an application plug-in, allowing you to add your own content. You can even pick up offerings from storage device or local network as long as the Boxee Box supports the codec. This box also lets you view videos from popular sites like Vimeo, YouTube and VUDU.
Boxee Box is a small, powerful video streaming device. And, you now know the answer to will Boxee Box support Hulu. And, that answer is yes…at least for now. Boxee Box’s partnership with Hulu makes it even more attractive to many users. Hopefully, these two companies will continue to cooperate and satisfy their many users.
References
Roettgers, Janko. “The Boxee Box will Stream 1080p, Play Hulu Videos.”
Foresman, Chris. “Boxee Box Now Shipping, Netflix and Hulu Plus Coming Soon”.
