Boxee held it’s “Boxee Event” in San Francisco last night. They declared the winner of their App Dev Challenge and made several announcements. Most notable (says Dave), Boxee has integrated MLB.TV Premium. MLB.TV is MLB.com’s online subscription service with high quality video streams of live games with premium features like DVR functionality and HD video when available. Boxee also released their Windows version as a public beta, meaning anyone can download and try it out.

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You may have heard recently that Blu-ray has plans to get managed copy – the ability to make a copy of your Blu-ray Disc within limits as defined by the studios.  That’s a great step in the right direction, but there are many negatives to the way it will be implemented. Ben Drawbaugh at EngadgetHD has the scoop on how it will work and the possible uses for this type of functionality.

We’ll get out the bad things we know about this first:

The Bad:

• Will require new hardware – yes all that money you dropped on those shiny new Blu-ray players won’t get you managed copy ever.
• Not free.  It will have some cost as defined by the studio.  Not a surprise, but still, do we really want to pay for the same movie over and over and over???
• Apple hasn’t joined the group of studios for the finalized AACS license so it’s unlikely we’ll see support for putting that copy of Blu-ray onto your Mac or iPhone.
• You’ll need an internet connection to copy the disk so it can check with the DRM server.
• There’s already an excellent (if not a bit of a stretch of the rules) way to do this with AnyDVD HD.

The Good:

• They are at least trying to answer the need for more portability of the media albeit in the typical imperfect way.
• According to EngadgetHD’s interview with the chair of the AACS business group, managed copy was designed with the “movie jukebox” use concept in mind.  So the use in a HTPC-type scenario just might work.
• The concept is a good one.  One that has a lot of potential and at least acknowledges the studios know (or are starting to understand) how its customers want to use their purchased media.
• Apple could still get on board by the time managed copy goes live in 2010.

If you’re at all interested in Blu-ray, be sure and read the article on EngadgetHD – it’s a good one.

Check out more of Brent’s reflections on tech, gadgets, software and media at Geek Tonic.

Wanting to check out a “few” new apps?  Thanks in part to the Boxee dev challenge, Boxee has a boatload of new apps to show off.  The list has some really ingenious ones and some incredibly bizarre ones, but you can’t argue that there aren’t enough apps these days can you Boxee’s dev is open for voting so if you’re a Boxee user and want to vote for your favorite app do so before the polls close on June 22nd at 11:59pm PT. Winners will be announced at the Boxee event in San Francisco on June 23rd. They also plan to launch the Windows version of Boxee, announce new partnerships and share more info about the boxee beta at the event. More info at the Boxee Blog.

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The guys over at networkmediatank’s forums have been waiting anxiously for more details on the newest version of the Popcorn Hour (C200) and Sybas finally delivered the specs and a few pics to feed the frenzy. Some things I noticed when browsing the specs and the forum Q&A include:

• It’s pretty big – much bigger than those older Popcorn Hours. The C-200 (16.73″ x 11.42″ x 3.14″) appears to be close to 2x the size of the A110 (10.5″ x 5.25″ x 1.25″)
• A nice move up to the much faster (more powerful) SMP8643 Sigma Chip (the A110 uses the SMP8635)
• It looks like it will support standard DVD and Blu-ray – there’s a removable drive tray that seems to support a hard drive, DVD drive or Blu-ray Drive!
• Gigabyte Ethernet support finally.  Too many media players don’t yet support this.
• It comes with an RF remote control – something not all that common even these days.  I’ll be interested in seeing what that remote looks like.  I would guess it will be something much less than a Harmony remote and closer in function/style to the Snapstream Firefly remotes.

I didn’t see anything showing price, but I’m betting it will start in the $300 price range at least.  Those GB-PVR guys have to be excited about this media player as they can use this thing as an extender.

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You’d think those using HTPCs for their TV recording and viewing would be the least likely to be affected by the Digital Transition last week, but you’d be wrong.  Many HTPC users (mostly Microsoft Media Center users) that rely on over-the-air (OTA) TV broadcasts for their TV signal have been experiencing major issues with incorrect guide data and incorrect channel mapping since the switchover.

Reports across the web have been streaming in about peoples entire TV Guide lineup showing incorrect channels, nothing but static or in some cases just disappearing. Here’s a few examples of rumblings on the issue:

Greenbutton – To see how angry many users are give this GreenButton thread a read. Here’s a quote from one of the many posts:

…and no it’s not wrong to be upset about it.  It’s been fairly obvious that MS couldn’t give two <shoots> about Media Center at the moment, we’re all messed up, it’s not just you.  For now you hack the file, deal with it, complain about it, and wait for MS to decide what they want to actually do or not do with this software.

Never overestimate the cantankerousness of a TV watcher

Chris Lanier says:

…the transition is causing grief for Media Center users, but for most that might be an understatement

Ben Drawbaugh, EngadgetHD said:

The exact cause isn’t known, but what is, is that while anyone who has a $50 digital converter box can just rescan to find the channels at their new home, Media Center users have to go well beyond anything your mom could do to get all the channels back.

ZDNet’s Ed Bott had this to say:

With all that experience, you’d think that Microsoft would have sailed through the long-awaited transition to all-digital over-the-air TV broadcasts in the United States this past Friday. Instead, the company failed, in dramatic fashion.

And one of the comments to that post at ZDNet was just priceless:

However, as my wife observed: Media Center users and little old ladies appear to be the only ones adversely affected by the changeover.

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We’re getting back to that old saying, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” with news of Hulu’s possible plans to charge for at least some content.  So one of the biggest advantages (and reasons for putting up with poorer video quality than broadcast/cable) just might be going away. According to an article in dailyfinance.com, News Corp’s chief digital officer:

envisions a future where at least some of the TV shows and movies on Hulu, the premium video site co-owned by News Corp., NBC Universal and Disney, are available only to subscribers.

If this is in fact the direction Hulu is going, it definitely would put a dent in the number of people interested in Hulu. The exception might be if they really are considering putting Hulu on a set-top box or other CE devices. Dave noticed an article stating Roku might be getting Hulu on their media player and there have been several rumors of Hulu coming to the XBox 360. I can see a paid model being more palatable to the owners of Hulu than the current free for all.

I kind of hope this isn’t true, but it probably is the future. Newspapers, TV and other online media is very likely moving towards more paid or at least subscription models going forward and this goes follows that trend. Put Hulu in high definition or at least much closer-to-HDTV quality, put it on as many CE boxes as possible like Netflix has been doing, and I think it just might work. (via MissingRemote.com)

Check out more of Brent’s reflections on tech, gadgets, software and media at Geek Tonic.

The Zune HD rumors have now been confirmed by Microsoft – it’s coming this Fall. And they are talking about a tie-in with Xbox Live services, too. Looks like the ZuneHD is targeted as a direct competitor to the iPod Touch. A press release by Microsoft gives us the following info about the new portable media player (PMP):

• Built-in HD Radio receiver – I like this idea although it’s not something I’d pay much extra for to get the feature. Still it’s a differentiater that should help.
• Comes with an OLED touch screen interface and a 16:9 widescreen format display (480 x 272 resolution)
• High-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) audiovisual docking station that connects direct to an HDTV in 720p is available at an additional cost
• Zune HD will include a full-screen Internet browser optimized for multitouch functionality.
• Zune HD is Wi-Fi enabled, allowing for instant streaming to the device from the more than 5 million-track Zune music store.
• “Zune will be a premium partner in the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace.”  Meaning TV, movies and games could be accessible to the Zune through the Xbox Live Video Marketplace

I see a few things here with the Zune HD that are interesting and I definitely would love to see Apple get a little more competition on the iPod front.  But you know what I see glaringly missing from the Zune HD press release?  There is no mention of any Microsoft Media Center tie in – absolutely none. I hope I’m wrong on this, but this really sounds like once again MediaCenter is not going to get “connected” to another Microsoft hardware device.

Check out more of Brent’s reflections on tech, gadgets, software and media at Geek Tonic.