Not sure exactly how long this has been the case for, but Lifehacker reader Tim wrote in to say that content from the ABC’s justly popular and well-regarded iView service became accessible over the weekend via the equally popular and well-regarded Boxee media centre.
Time notes that he experienced a few glitches in getting iView to work (he had to Alt-Tab into and out of the app to ensure sound worked). I didn’t have that problem myself (under Ubuntu). Anyone given this a try on a dedicated piece of Boxee hardware? Either way, it’s a welcome addition to one of the more popular media centre software packages around. Thanks Tim!
Curious
Monday, March 7, 2011 at 4:33 PMIs this official support from the ABC? Why haven’t they announced it? They make big announcements when they extend their service to $2000 TVs and the iPad, but when it comes to a free service they say nothing…
Bruce
Monday, March 7, 2011 at 10:25 PMThis is not an official plugin, it is not supported by the ABC.
As long as Boxee allow these unofficial ports of copyrighted content they’re not going to make friends amongst the content-holders or networks.
Curious
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 11:05 AMI think the logical solution is for ABC to work with Boxee and other similar services (Windows Media Center, XBMC) and then there wouldn’t be unofficial ports.
noisymime
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 2:34 PMThis must be in some way official as Boxee won’t let 3rd parties add the feed files required for things to appear in the search results like this. I wrote the unofficial Boxee iView app and it was rejected for inclusion in the official Boxee repos etc because it wasn’t authorised by the ABC.
Jason Cartwright
Monday, March 7, 2011 at 4:33 PMThis happened December 4th, 2010 – http://www.techau.tv/blog/boxee-pulls-abc-shows/
Angus Kidman
Monday, March 7, 2011 at 4:49 PMThanks Jason — looks like it took ‘em quite a while to fix it!
Tim
Monday, March 7, 2011 at 4:44 PMThe problem’s with the picture, not the sound. When a video starts, the display shows the ABC iView website ‘underneath’ boxee (so it’s un-navigable). Sound starts normally, but the display remains ‘stuck’ until I alt+tab away and back.
I’m on Ubuntu 10.04, 64-bit. Frustratingly, the 64-bit version doesn’t play nice with Boxee for a few reasons the problem is probably something to do with that.
Angus Kidman
Monday, March 7, 2011 at 4:49 PMSorry Tim, my misreport!
woodsdog
Monday, March 7, 2011 at 4:55 PMHopefully a XBMC intergration is just around the corner… I know their is an add on of sorts, but some prob’s I think… itching to have time to test it out
Aaron De Vries
Monday, March 7, 2011 at 6:45 PMsweet! works with my Boxee Box, just have to use to the cursor to click play on the iview site after a show is selected
Calvin Lichty
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 7:09 AMIt already is. Download the repo from here: http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-catchuptv-au/
He has made addons for 7, Ten, SBS and ABC iView. Everything works pretty well but Ten’s media is pretty stagnant (still only showing shows aired in 2010).
Robbo
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 12:01 AMBoxee should change its name to “Bugee”. Great idea but so many problems with streaming it’s not worth the bother. Crashes incessantly, feed buffer runs out of content, drops the signal, etc. It’s a great idea and maybe it works in the USA but is certainly isn’t worthy of the time and frustration here in Oz…
Tim
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 8:36 AMThe platform is definitely pretty buggy but I almost never encounter any of these ‘mission critical’ problems. My wifi drops out occasionally, which is pretty annoying, but that’s to do with my OS (and, it must be said, geography) rather than Boxee.
The bugs I get are of the “mild hassle” variety. Unavailable streaming content, unrecognised media, not updating watched folders fast enough, stupid music player etc.
Damo
Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 11:37 PMOK – I’m new to Boxee repos, but not repos in general. There should be a URL which is the repo, right? So where is it? I see the downloadable zips on the various repo project sites, which I assume install the repo straight into the app.. so where in the Boxee file structure (on Windows/Mac) do I drop them?