BitTorrent On Your TV For Less Than $90.00
Written by enigmax on July 01, 2009Numerous BitTorrent-enabled TV devices are jostling for position next to your TV these days, but a new entrant to the market attracts the eye not because of what it has, but for what it doesn’t. CinemaCube is a BitTorrent-enabled set-top box that goes for the less-is-more angle, at a price most people can afford.
Weighing in at a svelte 1.5 pounds and a compact 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.8 inches, CinemaCube is a brand new HD multimedia BitTorrent-enabled set-top box.
CinemaCube connects to your regular TV. It has an HDMI port and supports HD content up to 720p. It has all the usual analog and composite connections, S-Video and S/PDIF and plays back a multitude of formats including Xvid, DivX, AVI, H.264, MP4, MP2, RMVB, WMV, MP4, MKV, JPEG, BMP and PNG. Audio formats are also supported including FLAC, AAC, OGG and WAV.
Crucially for TorrentFreak readers, all of the above media can be acquired via the machine’s built-in BitTorrent client or from your existing PC archive via the built in 10/100 network socket.
Of course, there are many other set-top style boxes with these type of capabilities these days but what sets CinemaCube out from the competition is what it doesn’t have.
For starters the device doesn’t have a built in hard drive. Instead, CinemaCube has USB 2.0 connectivity which means that you can use your own external units or take advantage of small and cheap USB memory sticks which simply plug in.
For green-minded individuals, due to the lack of a hard drive CinemaCube doesn’t have a thirst for power consumption either, using only 10 watts of electricity when downloading via BitTorrent.
Perhaps most importantly, the device also lacks a big price tag. Unlike other admittedly higher-spec boxes, CinemaCube from brite-View costs just $89.99, putting it in reach of even the most frugal BitTorrent user.
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57 Responses
This has nothing to do with bittorrent. Are you advertising for the company? If so, at least make it clear that this is an advertisement..
This looks interesting, finally bigger companies realize the potential bit torrent brings :D
Sound like a fantastic product! Hope it doesn’t get leeched on by the MAFIAA or anything though.
@1: Please read the post before commenting – this device has a BitTorrent client – the clue is in the title.
Adverts appear on the right. Adverts NEVER appear on the left. EVER
yeh, right, pay $89.99 so you can watch shaky cam rips with bad framerate and bad aspect ratio on your HD Tv.
Also, you say “formats including Xvid, DivX, AVI, H.264, MP4, MP2, RMVB, WMV, MP4, MKV, JPEG, BMP and PNG” , but really though, avi and mkv are containers while xvid, divx, h.264 are codecs. Get your facts right if you’re so intent on advertising crapware.
Nice read
Personally the Popcorn hour is MILES AND MILES above this.
The Popcorn hour has an inbuilt torrent client too
This has its uses for green -and powerbutton minded individuals.
Still it’s a commercial product, so this truly is advertising.
Stop bitching and whining, no one MADE you read it. It is relevant to the content of the blog, its tech that uses torrents.
I am only pointing out that what enigmax sais about adverts is incorrect. Why the hell shouldn’t people address faulty statements? You’ll only create a bigger rift between people by attacking critical comments and other attacks.
Honesty blog writers especially should be able to endure criticizement and attacks. So let enigmax handle himself and stop creating a rift between users.
@9
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
– Use a spell checker –
Live and let live. People make mistakes.
This sounds great but I’m confused on one aspect; How do you view progress and contorl the bittorent downloads?
Through your TV?
I would love to see a video of this actually in action as I’m contemplating buying one, just hope they ship to England.
@5..”"yeh, right, pay $89.99 so you can watch shaky cam rips with bad framerate and bad aspect ratio on your HD Tv. “”
lol…you are in the know mate…lol..
mediaplayers are great in this format.
No noisy pc running while watching.
download straight to the device.
…………………………….
I have a sumvision media player Enclosure.. standard definition…plays xvid,divx ect…. Usb, card reader.. Records as well as playback..
You choose your own hard-drive..
MY point… SD Mediaplayer enclosure, 320gb hard-drive = £80
CinemaCube hd $89 + $60 hd = cheap .. for what you get.
Still I will wait until I have the need for one.
check out sumvision.. cheep as chips for media enclosures..check ebay/google for best prices.
http://www.sumvision.com.cn/searchResults.aspx?ptype=37
@4: My apologies. I was too quick to say what comes into mind. Rather than writing an article that ‘advertise’ the product, perhaps you would consider doing a product review by summarizing the pros and cons of the product and compare it against other products?
As it is, I feel like this is some sort of advertisement.
Lol, #1 FAIL!
this is bittorrent PRODUCT NEWS…
somewhat an advert , yes.
but talking positivitly about any product is an advert.
get over it…
…….
eg… This post is an advert ? ?
http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-on-bittorrent-090629/
these are good ideas for products and i think its a good article, and wouldn’t really call it advertising, though you might want to post other players for a comparison and to look less one sided.
i currently use my xbox 360 to watch stuff, but that has a more limited support for codecs, being able to play h264 mkv’s certainly makes it worth the money imo
WD HD Media Player, anyone?
Or an xbox 360 would be money better spent
In Fact this does nothing a DVD player with a USB connection does AND it costs more
@ 19
“How much money did you get to advertise this TT?”
About the same amount of money that was spent on your education by the looks of it……
TT??? Who’s TT? ha ha
FACE!
MP4 is listed twice, pointing it out since no one else has yet. In the interest of avoiding suspicions of your neutrality, perhaps some links to the pricier alternatives would be a good idea, rather than just mentioning them in passing, so people can actually have a look for themselves.
That said, this seems like a pretty cool thing.
it only goes up to 720p? pppffff
good article, not an ad as sum idiots appear to believe. keep up the good work guys.
So its not enough you put ads on the right of the page, now you have to put ads directly in your blogs?
Why dont you put annoying pop ups that goes off every 5 sec and get it over with. Damn, everybody is selling these days. “I have some users on these site for selling. Free speech for a buck anyone”
http://www.synthtopia.com/content/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/greed.jpg
That’s pretty sweet. I wonder if it would work with other sites besides the main players. I prefer http://www.zoomtorrents.com?file=Sims_3_FullVersion_DVD.iso just because I’ve had good luck with them. Still pretty cool, and reasonably priced.
This is great for noobs.. people arent seeing what this can really do for you..
You see you can enjoy incredible TV with no commercials at any time with a touch of a button.. ive been doing it so long I cant even watch regular TV.. its just annoying.. but ive built a custom media machine that can do 1080p.. it takes alot of work.
With this you dont have to do all that.. its a plug in solution that can get all your downloaded stuff on your TV.. its the future.. and we get to experience it far before all the ‘cattle’ does.
I don’t watch commercials, and I don’t feel bad about it. Think about this.. what service do you know that you have to PAY FOR and WATCH ADVERTS… f*ck that. In this day and age, its one or the other.
Free with adverts or Pay for none. Since they don’t understand that.. I do neither. TV has absolute garbage on it anyway.
People just don’t understand how powerful bittorrent is.
I think most of you need to learn to chillax a bit!
Yeah it may be some advertising, it may be a bit uninformative – but hey – at least it gives you something to read. And if you don’t want to read it or you dont like what it says then sit back, make yourself a cup of tea and find something else thats more up your street…
get a WDTV instead, it plays 1080p files
I wonder if it has a built in PG2 style program?
If it was able to stream from PC to it, I’d be sold.
I dont get all this whining, its interesting to see whats available.
but one thing people don’t seem to be asking about is… WTF is with that video
So much easier yo just get a 360 and download torrents on your computer. Put them on a thumb drive and plug it into the 360 and you’re good to go and if you don’t have a thumb drive just use tversity.
I don’t understand the sudden spur of these tv torrent devices. There are so many other ways to just hook up your pc to a tv for cheaper.
why do i need htis is what you should ask. I have a monitor and all the stuff i need UM why pay hhten for a television an d some piece a hardwre i can save stuff onto
FAIL
On mah TV? All that takes is a DVI-HDMI cable ;x
‘Supporting 720p’ doesn’t even necessarily mean that it will play every 720p file you have flawlessly. Most lower end systems will ’support 720p’ but when you hit an information rich pan, they’ll stutter. In order to guarantee that 720p will play flawlessly, you want a system that ’supports 1080p’ or higher.
Popcorn Hour – plays 1080p and has transmission Client …
its ok i used 1 for over 2yrs now not a prob with it
the downside is the cappers that live stream and upload at same time it brakes the file so when you play it it autio stops playing cos mediaplayer thinks its not a single file Have to recode i t so its a single file to play from start to finish
thay live stream to get first on the tracers/pre ratings twats !!! with the amount of repacks thats been hitting lately is it worth it do the job right in the first place would not need repacks
http://twitter.com/OvernetUser
Waste of money, just like consoles or DVD players. All you need is your computer. Your computer is your DVD player, gaming console, Bittorrent client, radio, cell phone… and often times it’s much better at it too.
Biggest fail of a advert on the internet
so far for the advert fail.. the things that seems most strange to me are the people that attack those with critical and or confrontational comments.
that and remarks about minor spelling mistakes are so primitive and childish.
@11
Check out the listing on Amazon.com they have a few pictures of what the client looks like.
http://www.amazon.com/brite-View-CinemaCube-BitTorrent-downloader-BV-5003/dp/B002729ZU0
Found this at Fatwallet Forum: $5 off coupon code BVCINEMA, which makes it $84.99 shipped. Sweetness!
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/933932
And will the “noobs” understand why they have to wait two days for the movie they want, to be ready to watch? Will they understand that when they use it to “watch” new releases, they’re going to get infringement notices from their ISP? Will they know what “seeding” is and why they should do it? Will it handle Rar files?
I’m not saying it’s a bad product, but “noobs” will have no clue about the limitations and dangers of using BitTorrent to download copyrighted files.
BEST AD EVAR
@44
Epic trolls are epic.
off topic but did they use something other then xtranormal to make that vid. does anyone know what they used?
Just save another $100 and get a popcorn hour, FAR superior. I doubt this works with private trackers as it’s just ‘bit torrent protocol’ while popcorn hour is the transmission client. Not to mention it handles more formats and full HD. This is cheap trash.
the problem with these players are will they have firmware updates to fix the bugs and add new features like the popcorn hour.
I will stick to streaming my HD movies to my Xbox 360.
Go to chinavasion and by an HDD Media for $22 :)
you all above dont get it
IM NOT paying for more hardwre that already exists on my computer fo rsomehting that costs nothign to transmit
put some adds on hte sites and do it like old school tv without the ads or i aint doing it
90$ wtf stupidity they think they pushing
i see 125$ for cable and sat tv so lets just make it 90
when it costs like pennies a download
NO NO NO to this sillyness.
Can’t wait till every job in hte USa is out sourced and no american can pay this stuff.
Don’t generalize people like that, a good part probably does get that.
But like I refered in my first post: it could be interesting for green -and powerbutton (those who are always concerned about their hardware wasting energy when they’re not using it, or afraid of hardware getting fried and burning their house down when they are sleeping) minded people.
no 5.1 sound, so not interested.
Same with the WD one. no 5.1 – so not interested in that either.
Why add HD support with 720 but fail to include 5.1 sound.. I guess it is a licensing fee.. but I would gladly pay more if it had 5.1 sound
y’all thuck az judgez
For all those saying “just use your computer” or “this is dumb,” let me say, always running your computer isnt always the best option. Yes I can plug my computer (like everyone else on the planet) directly to my TV and view my desktop on my TV. This feature has existed as long as DVI and VGA adapters have existed.
As others have said these tools serve a purpose. Personally I use WD TV and WD My Book World Edition (NAS). Download my files to my NAS storage then play onto the TV with WD TV. The reason for not streaming directly from my laptop you ask?
So I can write this crap to you, find some new tunes, download new movies, find the software I need, etc etc etc, without a single percent of CPU being set aside to play the video onto the TV. Also, I have family who aren’t quite as a computer literate, but now I can download and let the kids watch whatever recent animated movie has come out while I do my thing.
I think most people can appreciate the joy of saving CPU %’s.
Thanks, but I’d rather stick to my much more powerful, flexible, GPU-accelerated HTPC with a crapload of HD space that is hooked up to my nice big TV.
i will not buy this. i already watch my torrents on my hdtv through the graces of an usb 2.0 port on my hdmi ready dvd player.
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