walcome: HOW TO: Get the Most Out of the Boxee Beta

We’re big fans of Boxee, the media center with a social twist. At CES 2010, Mashable editor Barb Dybwad got a hands-on look at the upcoming Boxee Box which will be just one of many IPTV devices to hit stores this year. However, you don’t have to wait for the Boxee Box to start using Boxee, as the software is already available for Mac, Windows and Linux systems. The Boxee Beta was officially released a few weeks ago and if you haven’t given it a shot, it’s really something you should check out.
As a long-time Boxee () user, I thought I would compile some tips for making the Boxee experience even better. Be sure to add your own tips and suggestions to the comments!

Get a Remote

Although Boxee is designed to work just fine with a keyboard or mouse, the platform really shines when paired with a remote control. Boxee can work with remotes made for Mac (both the white remote control that comes with the Apple TV and used to get packaged with all Macintosh computers or the new aluminum remote control), Windows Media Center and even higher-end fair like the Logitech Harmony series.
Additionally, if you have an iPhone or iPod touch, there are literally dozens of fantastic WiFi remote applications that you can use to control your Boxee experience, including Boxee’s official iPhone Remote (iTunes link), which is free and easy to set-up.
Here are a few suggestions to keep in mind when choosing a remote control:

- If you have a Mac running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, install this handy little Preference Pane utility called Candelair. It’s free and it was created by the same people behind the fantastic Remote Buddy application. Why do you need Candelair? Well, with Mac OS X 10.6, Apple changed how some applications respond to the Apple Remote and consequently, apps like Boxee don’t work with the remote like they did in the past. Install this free utility and enable Legacy Remote support and you’re good to go.

- If you want a little more oomph in your iPhone or iPod touch remote application, check out HippoRemote. While there are dozens of great remote/VNC apps out there, HippoRemote remains my favorite because of its built-in program profiles (including Boxee), great trackpad support and the ability to do stuff like Wake-on-LAN which is really nice if you are using Boxee in your living room.
- Check the Boxee Forums. The Boxee Forums have a dedicated sub-forum just for remote inquiries, so check that out if you need any tips or buying suggestions.

Name and Organize Your Files The Right Way

This is a tip that really works for any media center setup, not just Boxee, and it takes some time, but the net gain is totally worth it. Organize and name your files the right way. Although you can add local and networked sources to Boxee with ease, you can reduce the amount of time that the software will spend scanning for updates and trying to find stuff if you keep things as organized as possible.
Here are some tips:

Organize into folders by media type. You don’t necessarily have to get as specific as Artist, Album, TV Show, Season, etc., but just having movies in a Movie () folder, music in a Music folder, and TV shows in a TV Show folder can go a long way to make it easier for you to find stuff if you need to browse manually and for Boxee to automatically start associating files with meta-data.
Name your TV show files using the sXXeXX format. For instance, if you have an episode of “30 Rock” The file name should be something like 30.Rock.s04e11.avi (meaning season 4, episode 11) or something similar. You don’t have to be that picky about using periods or underscores, modern files systems will understand spaces, but make sure you have the show title and the season and episode number in the title so that when Boxee does a comparison against IMDB and other sources it can get the right artwork and description info.

Make shortcuts to favorite or frequently used folders. One of the best features of the Boxee Beta is the new homescreen layout and the ability to add shortcuts directly to folders or directories or applications. If you have a local source that you frequently use to add new content to, add a shortcut to it so that you can easily access it.

Access Mature Hulu Content via Boxee

As it stands, Boxee works with Hulu () (in an unofficial capacity) by using its built-in Mozilla-based Boxee Browser, and by associating shows in its TV database with their Hulu counterparts. The only problem is that for content like “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” you’re going to see an option to watch on FXNetwork.com, but not Hulu, because you need to be of a certain age to watch that programming, and that requires logging in with your Hulu account.
In the Boxee Forums, NomadDNA has a great how-to post that shows you an easy trick to use your Firefox () cookie settings (just be sure to login to Hulu in Firefox first) in Boxee to trick Hulu into seeing you as a logged in user!

Change-up Your Background

The new Boxee Beta has a really great look, but who doesn’t love to customize their media center even more? You can change the background in Boxee by going to Settings, General and then selecting the Background Image option. Here you can point Boxee to a folder of your choosing and Boxee will rotate through the photos in that folder for your background.