Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"Sonic Solutions® (Nasdaq: SNIC) today announced that RoxioNow platform licensee, Sears, has officially launched its online movie download service, Alphaline Entertainment. The new service enables Sears and Kmart customers to download entertainment online, including new movies on the same day they are released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Sonic is working with Sears on a multi-phase rollout that includes making the service available from a broad range of connected devices and ensuring compatibility with studio-supported digital programs."

Colour me baffled. I know that streaming movie services are going to get increasingly popular moving forward, but I fail to see what Kmart and Sears can bring to the table...unless it's simply moving the hardware that will tap into this service. If I were to fast-forward to late 2012, I think I'll see this service folding after a failed two years of struggling and Netflix continuing to fight it out with iTunes.

"It's a little strange that the Boxee Box by D-Link feels like a late entrant in this year's crowded smart TV market -- the core Boxee software has been around forever, and the Box itself was announced way back in January at CES. But a platform switch from NVIDIA's Tegra 2 chip to Intel's Atom-based CE4100 platform cost Boxee and D-Link valuable time, while the Boxee software went through a dramatic UI transformation from the beta to 1.0. What's more, Boxee's gone from being an upstart rock'n'roll rebel to a legit market player, with a Netflix deal on the books and -- wonder of wonders -- an agreement to bring Hulu Plus to the Boxee Box sometime next year. That's a lot of changes, and, quite frankly, a lot of hype -- Boxee's dedicated fans are expecting the small company and its asymmetrical Box to show up no less than Apple and Google. So have Boxee CEO Avner Ronen and company pulled it off?"

Engadget has put the Boxee Box through its paces, and the end result is mixed: they feel it's the most capable media streamer on the market, with strong codec (file format) support, but at the moment it's more of a rough draft than a finished product. I've had one for a bit over a week now, and feel similarly - it's an extremely powerful product with lots of potential, but out of the box there are more than a few glitches. Read more...