The folks at boxee have just released a new version of their media-focued application bearing the same name. Currently in Alpha, boxee adds support for the BBC iPlayer (UK users only), Joost and MTV Music. “Thousands” of free invites are coming, as well!

“boxee’s private alpha went well beyond our expectations. Over 200,000 people signed up,” the folks behind the cool application say. “Today we’re opening our alpha to all Mac, Ubuntu, and Apple TV users. Windows is also moving into private-alpha (which means you still need to get invited, but we’re going to release thousands of invites every week). Bear with us as we scale…,” the post ends.

After adding boxee to your Mac, the application scans and adds all your media to its library. Then, it starts looking up any artwork that the media might have attached to it, such as an album cover. If it can find reviews, trailers, and lyrics that are associated with your content, boxee will bring those up too.

Boxee plays any non-DRM media, and it's compatible with nearly all file formats, including high definition (HD) videos. If you want to share media with others, you can do so through the boxee UI, as the app integrates with your twitter, or tumbler account. You can play files from your hard drive, network, or you can stream content from the likes of YouTube and flickr. Best of all, boxee has remote control support. Good news for developers - boxee is open source, therefore anyone can develop new applications and channels within the interface.

The latest version of boxee also brings dual screen support, Netflix streaming improvements, search in Hulu, ffwd, rewind, pause in Comedy Central, Improved mouse support, recognition for 3 digits episode numbers and updates to the Flash player.
Requirements include a Boxee.tv account and Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or later.

Download Boxee (Free)