Boxee, now with Hulu!

Not so very long ago, I gave a preview of Boxee, a media center for your Mac, Linux, or AppleTV based setup. Though I loved the idea, there were some major criticisms that prevented me from using it as my main media program.

Well, this week Boxee has a new version out that has cleaned up the UI, and added support for Hulu, Comedy Central, and CBS.com full episodes. Below I outline what they’ve fixed, and what still needs working on.

In my preview of Boxee, I first complained about the login screen, which gives you a choice of logins, even if only one account is there. This holds true for this iteration of Boxee as well. There is still no auto-login support, even with only one account present.

Next on my complaint list was lack of full episodes from sites like Hulu, CBS.com, and ABC.com. This version of Boxee is fantastically better, offering Hulu, Comedy Central, and CBS.com. There is still no ABC.com support, however, and Hulu plays noticeably slower than when viewed in Safari. There are many more skips and stops and starts.

The Boxee interface (above), my biggest complaint last go-around, has been dramatically altered this time. It is now much easier and intuitive, and Music and Videos are navigated hierarchically. Best of all, the menu no longer slides out over the rest of the content, but pushes other content to the side, making for a much cleaner and less cluttered look.

Overall, this iteration of Boxee has fixed almost every issue I’ve wanted fixed. It will definitely be a central player in my forthcoming Mac Mini/HDTV home theater setup. There are only three major things I would like to see added or changed: the ability to change the wallpaper that shows behind menus, Hulu playback needs to be on par with Safari (I’m not sure why there’s a difference, but there most definitely is,) and ABC.com shows need to be added. I need my Lost.

Boxee is available for Mac and Linux. You can sign up for the private alpha at boxee.tv.

Product [Boxee]