+- Kodi Community Forum (https://forum.kodi.tv)
+-- Forum: Discussions (https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=222)
+--- Forum: Hardware (https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=112)
+--- Thread: Hacking the Boxee Box to run XBMC? (/showthread.php?tid=64578)
- voip-ninja - 2010-11-29
FFFFFFUUUUUUUUU Wrote:Lest Boxee forget, XBMC came into existence on a closed, proprietary hardware platform, which couldn't even be legally distributed in executable format.
If Boxee/Dlink think plugging holes to prevent root access will stop developers they are definitely waging a losing battle. And more than anybody, THEY should bloody understand that! History will repeat, so why continue to fight it?
I'm so disheartened by tsella's comments. But ok, I accept it. You got your VC money and now you gotta demonstrate some value to your investors, and you gotta prove you have a robust platform to your partners. That's fine. Clearly your core user base today doesn't see streaming video to be as important as you do, but who knows, perhaps in a few years we'll all be referring to the Boxee team as visionaries.
But seriously, at best, if Boxee really thinks XBMC is a threat, please just IGNORE it - just pretend XBMC doesn't even exist, and your precious content partners will never be the wiser. Going out of your way to make it difficult (but NOT impossible) to install XBMC will only make you guys look like assholes, which I am certain the Boxee team are not.
You hit the nail on the head, but then sort of skated over the fundamental issue here.
Boxee have investors that fully expect to get paid back on that investment. In fact, Boxee just put in for another round of financing as they don't have enough cash reserves to keep operating for more than something like another 6-12 months and continue doing development on the box.
The reality is that Boxee is a company that has to make money to be successful. The Boxee Box is nothing but a platform to get there and they know that the box WILL NOT take off without Netflix/Vudu/Hulu, at least in the US which is where the money is going to be made from premium content partnerships.
As much as Boxee might want to open the box up for 3rd party development, this is not something they can do and still get premium content to come on board. Without premium content, Boxee is dead as a company, they've already stated on multiple occasions that they make ZERO dollars on the hardware (and have NO desire to be in the box making business).
We should not be shocked when Boxee blocks access, it's something they must do or Netflix, Hulu, etc, will pull out and the company will almost definitely go out of business.
XBMC is fantastic and obviously Boxee owes them a huge debt of gratitude but that doesn't mean they will make the box open just to make XBMC veterans happy.
I deploy XBMC with several clients (including my most important client, my wife) and once deployed it is wonderful. However, it's not something for novices or even enthusiasts unless they want to spend a lot of time tweaking it, dealing with OS headaches, remote integration issues, etc. The promise of Boxee really is to give us a little taste of XBMC for media playback and then give us the added bonus of online content. It's not there yet, but in six months it very well might be.
- Philmatic - 2010-11-29
tsella Wrote:ouch guys. some of the commentary here is nasty, and for no reason.
at any rate, I do want to chime in to this discussion. when we started the port to embedded devices, we certainly wanted to allow for xbmc to run on it, we said so in many occasions.
For no reason? Really? Wow, talk about backpedaling. You guys are speeding the wrong side of the highway!
Question asked at Boxee Blog
Blastactionhero Wrote:i think i will be sleeping at that time. so i post my question now...
will it be possible to put xbmc on the boxee box?
Answer by Avner:
avneron Wrote:yes, users should be able to run XBMC on the Boxee Box. we're not sure about the exact installation process that will be supported, but it is important for us to make sure XBMC runs properly on the Box.
Direct link to comment in question: http://gdgt.com/discuss/im-taking-questions-about-boxee-and-the-6tx/#1hb2
Don't forget you XBMC roots, the last thing you want is the enthusiasts who put you where you are now to ruin you. I don't see how allowing XBMC to run off of an SD card or flash drive jeopardizes any security you have implemented in your custom Linux build, if XBMC were to run off of bootable media, it would completely side step Boxee and not damage the integrity of the chain of trust you have implemented to keep things like Hulu+ and Netflix safe.
- topfs2 - 2010-11-29
voip-ninja Wrote:The reality is that Boxee is a company that has to make money to be successful. The Boxee Box is nothing but a platform to get there and they know that the box WILL NOT take off without Netflix/Vudu/Hulu, at least in the US which is where the money is going to be made from premium content partnerships.
As much as Boxee might want to open the box up for 3rd party development, this is not something they can do and still get premium content to come on board. Without premium content, Boxee is dead as a company, they've already stated on multiple occasions that they make ZERO dollars on the hardware (and have NO desire to be in the box making business).
Thats the bs I talked about, their player is closed and fits the drm requirement netflix and such put on them. The open source player in XBMC is _not_ used and as such running XBMC on the device is not in ANY way a breach of the DRM that netflix have put on boxee. One could argue that since xbmc can use the player they could do nasty stuff but thats true for boxee also which is equally open source (the part that controls the player). IF netflix want complete DRM of the entire chain making the player working more like an external player where boxee nor xbmc have access to the content is possible (and it might even be this is what boxee does now, haven't checked the code).
All in all, running xbmc on the box is in no way a breach of DRM, not any more than running any of the other open source apps already residing on it (remember its linux underneath).
- Bedpan - 2010-11-29
Been sitting on the fence as to weather I keep Boxee or return it. Been hopeful that I might come to like Boxee as it sits in my living room. Been hoping that Boxee would come true an allow XBMC to run until the Boxee software hits the mark.
What I am reading however is it is time to return the box and let the people know who I have been telling about boxee to return them as well. Online content is a nice to have, but if you cannot do local content better; to hell with ya..
Thanks Boxee, don't let the door hit your a$$ on the way out.
PS. I hope I can come to eat my words. Be it a few weeks or months. But right now I think my $200 is better spent else where..
Mike
- stacked - 2010-11-29
Bedpan Wrote:Been sitting on the fence as to weather I keep Boxee or return it. Been hopeful that I might come to like Boxee as it sits in my living room. Been hoping that Boxee would come true an allow XBMC to run until the Boxee software hits the mark.
What I am reading however is it is time to return the box and let the people know who I have been telling about boxee to return them as well. Online content is a nice to have, but if you cannot do local content better; to hell with ya..
Thanks Boxee, don't let the door hit your a$$ on the way out.
PS. I hope I can come to eat my words. Be it a few weeks or months. But right now I think my $200 is better spent else where..
Mike
Just a heads up.
Quote:Amazon's customer service dept. saying... " We'll accept returns of items shipped by Amazon.com between November 1, 2010 and December 31, 2010 until January 31, 2011 for a full refund
http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=23277
- Hannes The Hun - 2010-11-29
topfs2 Wrote:All in all, running xbmc on the box is in no way a breach of DRM, not any more than running any of the other open source apps already residing on it (remember its linux underneath).
actually another comparison came to my mind: it's okay for a manufacturer to use a signed bootloader to "protect" its hardware, or to translate this: to make it a little harder for the community to get their own stuff loaded onto the hardware.
that's *exactly* what happened to some android smartphones where you can't get a custom ROM installed because of that bullshit, but that does not mean that you can't get root access and a somewhat customized OS onto it as long as you use the original signed kernel. see the moto milestone as a primary example.
so what's gonna happen to the boxee box? exactly the same! we'll figure out a way to root it, we'll figure out a way to install XBMC onto it on top of the original kernel, and the rest of the story is something like "We don't care!"
business models, protected content, hardware partners, WTF?! I also don't care what the boxee guys promised in the past, the fact is that we have a nice hardware with an awesome remote that begs for XBMC to be installed. and in the end that's what's gonna happen, exactly like what happened back in the good old xbox days.
so stay calm, let the linux gurus do their nasty work, and enjoy your hacked boxee boxes. maybe not this year, but q1 2011 sounds reasonable to me.
- topfs2 - 2010-11-29
Hannes The Hun Wrote:we'll figure out a way to root it
Now that part is rather simple, there are quite some misses in the code which gives you root so easily. Not gonna say how since they might cover their leak :p
- Bedpan - 2010-11-29
Thanks... Mine was bought at a Canadian Retailer. Just checked and they give until Jan 5. Give it till then I guess....
stacked Wrote:Just a heads up.
http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=23277
- BAG_Ass - 2010-11-30
gnarfy
PLS give link to 0.9
- teaguecl - 2010-11-30
Hannes The Hun Wrote:business models, protected content, hardware partners, WTF?! I also don't care what the boxee guys promised in the past, the fact is that we have a nice hardware with an awesome remote that begs for XBMC to be installed.
Boxee are not bad guys, don't be so hard on them. In order to deliver to you the "nice hardware with an awesome remote" they have to play with the big companies, including the draconian content providers. Avner and company "get it", as demonstrated by his quote about XBMC being installable on the Boxee Box. It's obvious that their intent is for it to be an open ecosystem, and they are not trying to be leeches from the XBMC project they forked from. Will any of that actually happen? I don't know, but I'm confident that it will be Big Media at fault if it doesn't, and not the fine people over at Boxee.
If the Boxee Box doesn't succeed, then it's the last of it's kind. We will never see a Boxee Box 2, and that would be a shame because it has potential to bring the joy we get from our XBMC installs to millions of consumers who are not tinkerers.
Go Boxee, I'm rooting for you. I don't like your software, but I like your business and how you conduct yourselves, and I think you are injecting some decency into an industry that traditionally runs low on it.
- extrafuzzyllama - 2010-11-30
i bought a boxee and so far pretty happy and will be more once bug fixes are pushed out
But if xbmc could somehow be ported to the boxee box i would buy a second boxee to have xbmc on one boxee box and boxee on the other box and would have the best of both worlds. The online big partner content of boxee and the ui and customization greatness of xbmc.
- BAG_Ass - 2010-11-30
extrafuzzyllama
boxee is not bad, but if they take xbmc and add on-line features we don`t discuss here about bad soft and good box - it would be great box, but we have it as is and this "is" is bad "is" now. If they return "not library" mode and add skins support i leave them alone and will be happy with my locale files and my favorite PM3HD
- Bahndit - 2010-11-30
Wow, guys you got me all riled up. I have been very excited for Boxee and their box but I can't help feeling like xbmc is being snubbed. I for one would love to see a box was made just to run XBMC. (yes, I have heard of mini-pc's like the ION platform. I am talking about a Boxee-Box equivalent for XBMC)
I know that there are all sorts of issues with 'archiving' your DVD's especially when it comes to US copyright law but I've always felt that the approach that Apple took with iTunes and the iPod was the way it should be done. Let people 'digitize' their movies, have a product that organizes and makes enjoying 'digitized' movies easy, and then say to people hey why don't you just buy digital copies from us instead of buying a disc and 'digitizing' it. I realize that the Media Overlords aren't happy about what happened with the music industry and are doing their damnedest to prevent it from happening with movies, but I still think it is the way to go.
P.S. I know my grammar sucks and 'digitize' may not be the best word to describe putting DVD/Blu-rays on a Hard Drive but it's 3:30 AM and I really should be asleep.
- Hannes The Hun - 2010-11-30
I'm nowhere saying that the boxee guys are bad guys, and that's absolutely not my opinion, more on the contrary! they started out with a brilliant idea, did some absolutely creative, ingenius work with the software and hardware, and in the end got served by the content industry like so many before them; just look at all the providers that are now trying to exclude the google TV or similar TV boxes from accessing their content without contracts.
teaguecl Wrote:If the Boxee Box doesn't succeed, then it's the last of it's kind. We will never see a Boxee Box 2, and that would be a shame because it has potential to bring the joy we get from our XBMC installs to millions of consumers who are not tinkerers.
I just don't get your point there: why do you think that it will be "the last of its kind", or to put it another way, what do you think is it that makes the boxee box so special? as far as I understand, the actual software that's running on the boxes now is so different from XBMC that it's not a desirable XBMC-like networked media player solution anymore.
what I'm going to say is, there will always be another contender on the market: sigma and realtek still provide dedicated chipsets, the ARM-players and intel smell a huge potential and also want to get into this segment, and we will see dedicated media players in 2011 that have similar responsive GUIs as XBMC and an integrated scraping jukebox.
I'm just trying to see this whole situation objectively: the boxee box is nothing more to me than a new (somewhat closed) hardware that is ideally suited to get XBMC onto it. it might not be as fast and powerful as a dedicated Ion-Box but it could be the ideal solution for friends and family who don't want to tinker with all the linux live optimizing stuff. make a boxee XBMC image, flash it onto the boxee box, and be done with it.
- topfs2 - 2010-11-30
And I'm not saying they are bad guys either, I really don't think they are bad and they have helped xbmc much over the years. I'm saying I don't understand their choices and strategies.