By Staff Writer – John Federico (@gadgetboy)

Last night at the Boxee Beta event, The Clicker app for boxee was unveiled. It’s enough to make a gadget geek swoon. More importantly, I can see how an app like this will be pivotal in the race toward IPTV and a completely on-demand TV universe.

While that might sound hyperbolic, consider these facts:

1) Bandwidth has become plentiful in the U.S. (though we still lag behind other countries)

2) Hardware capable of displaying full HD video is cheap – and getting cheaper (more on this in a moment)

3) Local storage is dirt cheap – you can easily store terabytes of video in your home.

To my mind, the one critical piece missing from all of this is discovery – that means deep search and person-to-person recommendations.

I will now make the age-old mistake of using myself as a Case Study of One.

In my living room there’s a 37″ 1080p HDTV, an original Roku box that delivers Netflix Streaming and Amazon Video On Demand, an upscaling DVD player and a recent model MacBook that I use with Boxee for online video, ripped DVD’s and occassionally Netflix or Amazon VOD.

Last but definitely not least is my Verizon FiOS set top box that delivers stunning 1080p HD and includes a DVR capable of HD storage and playback.

The only thing that’s kept me from ditching the last piece of gear is my ability to find a lot of the content that my family normally watches, online. This includes myriad shows from the likes of the Science Channel, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, SciFi (Now SyFy. Don’t get me started on that one…) in HD as well as the occassional episode of Cold Case, Criminal Minds and Dancing with the Stars. (For my wife. Really.)

Given my tendency toward gadgetry and the interwebs, I could probably find all of these shows and more in full HD online, either through services like Hulu or via torrent trackers.

But really, who has that kind of time? I certainly don’t.

So, the cable box stays.

The Clicker app for boxee may increasingly change all that, but the boxee integration is key.

While the Clicker app aggregates data on video content from all over the web, only a certain amount of that content is available within boxee, so they limit the search results to what you can actually play. Also, even if you find something on the web that you want to watch in boxee, it’s not always a trivial thing – sometimes it requires adding RSS feeds, etc. so this is much more convenient.

Like the Boxee app itself, the Clicker app is designed for use with a simple remote and while I haven’t tried it with a keyboard, that should work, too.

The Clicker may also drive a groundswell of requests for new content online.

For instance, I mentioned earlier that Discovery Channel gets a lot of play in our house – my son and I love to watch MythBusters together. Searching for MythBusters on clicker.com results in a message that says “Unavailable Online” but then provides you with an email link to “Alert the distributor that you’d like to see it online.”

As Boxee, the Clicker and other video apps become more popular, I could see this impacting the decision making of distributors like Discovery Communications.

I would be remiss if I left out all of the great content that is produced solely for IPTV deliver. Just about anything you can think of can be found on Clicker.com but again, Boxee shows only a subset. Availability will improve over time.

The Boxee Box

The mythical Boxee Box was also introduced last night. Designed by Astro and produced by D-Link, the box outputs HDMI, optical audio and comes with a couple of USB ports. No word yet on what’s actually inside – D-Link will have the pleasure of announcing that at CES in January. Presumably it will come with some storage capacity but my guess is that’s what the USB ports are for – external mass storage. That would explain the inexpensive $200 price tag. (More images in the gallery below)

My upgrade to the Boxee beta for Mac is pending but I’m looking forward to observing its impact on my family’s TV habits. Unfortunately, until Adam and Jaime go online, the cable box will stick around for our weekly episode of MythBusters.

Disclosure of Material Connection: http://dsclzr.us/0

Tags: Boxee , Boxee Box , Clicker , D-Link , Digital Media , Hardware , Hardware Startups , IPTV , Online Video , open source software , Software , Software Startups , Video Programming Guide