It is too cumbersome to get to local movies, tv shows
This issue is part of a broader feeling that Boxee has de-emphasized local files and is pushing online source instead. This is true and we made a mistake by not leaving it up to the user to decide.
Planned solution: We are going to let users tell Boxee whether they are going to use it mostly for local or Internet playback. In case you select "Local" clicking on Movies or Shows will take you to the movie or show files rather than to the most popular online titles.
We will expand on this notion and let users play with their settings as well.
Missing Filter and Sort options for local files
Many users are missing the ability to filter by Genre and have easier Sort controls (stuff that was in the left menubar in the Beta).
Planned solution: We are going to enable filtering by Genre for local Movies and Shows. Rather than bringing back the left menubar (that many users never discovered) we will introduce a new Sort button to the Browse Screens so you can easily choose to sort by Date (including reverse order) and A-Z.
We will also bring back the Mark as Watched and the ability to filter and see only the Unwatched Movies.
Improve navigation in long lists of files
When you have 600 videos in a folder navigating through the list is somewhat painful.
Planned solution: In addition to easier sorting options we will introduce new ways to navigate the list by A-Z. Hopefully it will make it much quicker.
Want Boxee to scan your folders more frequently
In the Beta we had "Monitored Folder", which made Boxee scan that folder for new files very frequently. Alas it created many issues especially as it relates to SMB sources.
Planned solution: Introduce a more granular scanning option. Maybe in an hourly resolution as well as make it easier to "force" Boxee to scan a source for new files.
There is also a bug related to manually identifying TV Shows, which we're fixing.
SMB sources disappear, prompting for u/p, SMB server showing wrong info re disk space
We heard multiple reports of issues related to SMB sources that "disappear" and only reboot brings em back. Mostly happening to users of Mac OS 10.6
Also some reports on prompts for u/p when they are not needed.
People who set up Boxee as an SMB server report that it shows wrong info re available space on the attached drive.
Planned solution: We are troubleshooting with several users who experienced this issue to find the bug and fix it. Hope to have news on that front soon.
Choppy playback of some file types
Some ISO and MKV files are not playing smoothly.
If you have a file that does not play well on Boxee we'd like to know about it. Please upload a sample and send us a link. We are looking at each one of these and trying to make it work.
Planned solution: We are working with multiple users on samples they sent us. We found some issues (either our issue or Intel issue) and working on fixes.
We are committed to make Boxee the best and most versatile player of video files. If it is feasible with our HW we will make it work.
Thumbnail loading, caching
For people with lots of videos the thumbnail loading and caching has been very problematic. It takes long to load and it needs to do it after every reboot.
Planned solution: We are looking into the way we load thumbs. There may be an issue right there. We are also looking for an alternative solution for caching the thumbs (maybe on an SD/USB stick or on the NAND).
We also want to support folder.jpg that users already have rather than going out to the Internets to fetch one.
Subtitle support
We are very proud to be supporting multiple subtitle formats including control of font, size, color and location. Alas some users have reported bugs related to SSA/ASS.
Plus a very annoying bug that make subtitles show by default..
Planned solution: We already fixed the default subtitle behavior and are looking into the issues related to SSA/ASS.
Weak WiFi signal
People reporting weak WiFi signals and in some cases buffering because of it.
Planned solution: First I must admit we have a somewhat embarrassing bug that Boxee shows the strongest WiFi AP as the weakest... Yes, I Know.. as I said, embarrassing. We fixed it. Now we need to find out why some people are having real miserable experience over WiFi. We are looking into it and troubleshooting with multiple users.
So you are "working on it". great.. but when should we expect fixes?
We are going to have a first firmware fix out later this week. Fixing support for 1080i TVs (a nasty, nasty bug) and as many other bugs as possible.
The UI fixes are going to take us 2-4 weeks, but otherwise we plan to release updates probably once a week in the short term, and then move to a more sane update schedule.
We appreciate all your feedback (including the blunt stuff) and hope to demonstrate that not only we listen, but we also fix the stuff you care about the most.
Feel free to email me directly at avner [AT] boxee. I read all my emails and answer, too...