Video game consoles, particularly the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, are increasingly becoming more than just gaming devices. They have become complete entertainment systems. You can now watch Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and other streaming video content. You can purchase and listen to music, and with the new Xbox 360 dashboard update coming this fall, you can even watch exclusive live content from cable providers.
One media streaming dilemma that still faces some Xbox 360 and PS3 users is the ability to stream content from another device, such as a desktop or laptop computer. If you have home movies, pictures or photos, a collection of MP3s, or other content that you have downloaded to your computer, it is a pain to have to copy that content to your game console. For Windows users, they can connect their Xbox 360 to their Windows computers without much difficulty. For the rest of us, there are third-party tools. One in particular that I have been using lately is PS3 Media Server.
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Like many people, I have an HDTV in my house that supports HDMI input devices, such as Blu-ray players. I also like to watch streaming content over the Internet, downloaded videos, and listen to music all from my TV and home theater system. Unfortunately, I do not have a 
Boxee is a home theater PC software program that runs on Linux and has been designed to be used like an interactive TV, somewhat like the Xbox 360 interface. In fact it’s based on another program called XBMC which was originally created to run on the first Xbox consoles. These days, you can use Boxee to not only manage local music and videos, but stream audio, video, and image content from places all over the web. There are connections to popular media sites like Last.fm, Flickr and YouTube, and a custom web browser to get additional content without leaving the Boxee environment.
