Boxee is a media center that takes a different approach to the on-line content experience. With the other media centers the focus is around gathering music, video, and photos from your computer and live television from a tuner or cable card and consolidating them into a pretty interface. On-line content is more of an after thought and added as a plug-in or executed application external to the media center.

What makes Boxee stand out is that it added Hulu, Netflix including “watch it now”, Joost, and Audio/Video podcasts as a main piece of the application. The ability to add applications allows games and other content to play through the media center and extent what the program can do as seen in other media center applications. One thing it can't do is pull in live T.V., but with the application slots I could see Freevo or some other application filling the void. It interesting to see the focus shift from live television content to Internet content – now television is the optional component.

What really blew me away about Boxee is that it reads and mounts iso disk images! I keep my DVD's in this format for easy backup and to keep the video quality intact. Not only did it find my iso images, but it added the cover image and when you select a movie it skips past all the ads and goes straight to the DVD menu! Not sure if XBMC does this, but it is the greatest thing ever.

I played with the OS X version of Boxee and now using the Windows alpha version on my media center pc and I am a happy camper; although, I was disappointed Netflix wasn't in the Windows version and lost how it could be in the Mac version. I hope to see it there soon as that is a major feature for me.

The network back-end is flawless pulling the content from my wife's Mac with ease. We have EyeTV3 on her machine and I have Boxee pointed to the recording directory, which negates my need to have my tuner working through Boxee on my media pc. We record TV on my wife's Mac and can watch it through Boxee on my big screen T.V.

The interface in Boxee looks great. Many media centers haven't impressed me, but the Boxee interface looks good and I iddn't find myself searching for skins like with the others after installing. I also like the way the interface is setup. No scrolling through menu items to get to setup, everything is tucked away nicely in the left side of the screen. The right offers sorting features, etc.   

Another thing I love is the iPhone remote control, which works very well. This WiFi remote for Boxee is available in Cydia and the AppStore. Being in total control of all the content on my machine and the internet from my couch kicks ass, even if it make me a lazy bastard. I swear the iPhone has spoiled me rotten!

Now to get the Linux version and play around with that for a bit and see if it is as great as the Mac and Window's versions.I just hopethis stays free or at least reasonable and keeps support for Netflix and Hulu! Only time will tell I suppose...

I also checked out Elisa because it's written in Python! Pretty cool, but Boxee still wins in my opinion.