A popular idea right now is to cut the cable bill and supplement it with cheaper offerings from Netflix or Amazon and free services like Hulu or over-the-air HD broadcasting from local stations. Some people may remember the Boxee Box and its accompanying review here on Neowin. The Boxee Box has received some updates and added features since then, though it is still limited. Boxee aims to change that, however.
According to GigaOM, the company is readying a live USB TV tuner to be released in January; the information comes about due to an unreleased build of Boxee 1.5.
What would a live USB TV tuner do? It would enable live television in HD over the air. Local stations (FOX, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc) already provide free HD broadcasts if you have a tuner or HD antennas that can receive the broadcasts. Boxee has stated that 89 of the 100 top shows are available on these free networks. One can gather from this that the company plans to allow the tuner to be the next step towards ditching a cable or satellite TV connection. Viewers who use the tuner and Boxee Box will now be able to switch between live TV and on-demand-content without switching TV inputs, with no additional cost on a monthly basis. This will set Boxee up as a competitor to offerings like Google TV (which require you to have a cable box to view live TV).
No comment from Boxee or word on official cost of the tuner seems to be available. In the meantime, check out this video about Boxee Live TV below.
Video Courtesy of: GigaOM