First announced December of last year, D-link’s newest home theater, Boxee Box, is finally available for pre-order. Shipping will start sometime in November to the U.S., Canada, E.U and Australia. Pricing in North America is $199 USD.

It was first powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 2 chip but didn’t stand up to D-link’s tests, demonstrating an inability to support 1080p HD video playback.  It was replaced by the ‘system-on-a-chip designed for TV and Internet integration,’ Intel Atom CE 4100 processor.  While this could be a sound move for D-link, the only way for them to prove this is when they release the unit to the market this November.

It has been a long wait and hopefully, Boxee Box will not disappoint us.  The company has been striving to remain relevant in a vastly changing industry, so far avoiding the fate of once-hyped Joost, which promised similar ideals around media consumption.  Boxee has generally been able to push through necessary updates and retaining consumer interest, the most recent being HTML 5 support, bringing us to this fated day.

As far as the industry is concerned, services like Boxee bring well-needed alternatives to big brands.  Boxee offered a few pondering points regarding Apple TV, using it as a point of reference for its own set top box and pricing.