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+--- Thread: Hacking the Boxee Box to run XBMC? (/showthread.php?tid=64578)
- voip-ninja - 2010-11-30
I think the strategy is to make money. They make zero dollars on the hardware, so selling 100K Boxee boxes that will be used as an 'XBMC box' isn't going to do anything for them.
- dan1son - 2010-11-30
Bahndit Wrote:...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. :
Apple and iTunes don't do anything more with ripping your own movies than anyone else. Their intention is for you to BUY movies FROM iTunes and then play them back on your devices (hopefully Apple products). iTunes isn't capable of ripping a movie anymore than XBMC. It WILL allow you to rip a music CD, but that's been legal all along.
- Geeba - 2010-11-30
Gets their product out there thou.... will do wonders for the share holders to see 100K Boxes shifted...
As previously said MS shifted 24millon Xboxes... I contributed a bit towards that figure but mine didnt really play many games before the dremmel and the mod-chip hit them... but I bet more than half those buyers bought 360's which MS make huge money on.
Many will be singing it praises if they can have XBMC on it... which leads to more buyer.. which will lead to more interest... and I bet a percentage of these purchases people are happy with the software and leave it....
To start its all about shifting TIN! - that exactly how Cisco Systems corned so much of the networking market... shifted tin... they even offered a per-port trade in to put your 3Com, Nortel etc kit in the crusher in exchange for discounted Cisco kit.
- voip-ninja - 2010-11-30
Geeba Wrote:Gets their product out there thou.... will do wonders for the share holders to see 100K Boxes shifted...
As previously said MS shifted 24millon Xboxes... I contributed a bit towards that figure but mine didnt really play many games before the dremmel and the mod-chip hit them... but I bet more than half those buyers bought 360's which MS make huge money on.
Many will be singing it praises if they can have XBMC on it... which leads to more buyer.. which will lead to more interest... and I bet a percentage of these purchases people are happy with the software and leave it....
To start its all about shifting TIN! - that exactly how Cisco Systems corned so much of the networking market... shifted tin... they even offered a per-port trade in to put your 3Com, Nortel etc kit in the crusher in exchange for discounted Cisco kit.
I'm not going to argue that XBMC on Boxee is not a good thing, because of course it is a good thing.
However your logic is flawed. MS doesn't make shit on the sale of an Xbox. It has been a money loser from day one. They make money when you buy games and accessories (and now, rentals, etc) for the Xbox. So all the people who bought an Xbox and ran XBMC on it, MS made zero.
D-Link does make money on the hardware but Boxee makes zero. Boxee's only way of making money is to get a slice of the revenue that gets generated when someone pays for a movie rental from Vudu, pays for a Netflix subscription, etc. They get nothing from people who spend all day downloading torrents to play on the Boxee Box. So, when Boxee goes to the investment bankers for another cash infusion, what kinds of demands do you think those people make? Naturally they want the buyer of a Boxee to purchase content, or they will never get their investment back. If you invested $1M in Boxee you might have similar reservations about how open you were willing to make the box if your own money were at stake and an open box might mean your money goes down the toilet.
Ultimately it comes down to who you believe. If you trust the Boxee guys then their hands are tied on this. We don't know what has been said by Netflix but it would not surprise me one little bit if Netflix has made serious requirements for how locked down the Box must be a reality. This is the same reason that the new WDTV Live+ has far less hackable firmware than the predecessor products... it was a requirement for Netflix.
Frankly, although I think that Boxee is eventually going to be cracked open to run XBMC (although probably not very well at first) I see a HUGE opportunity for someone to build cheap HTPC that is pre-configured to run XBMC Live with all needed drivers, settings tweaks, IR configuration, IR remote, etc, already built in and ready to go. Unfortunately even if you buy the cheapest box possible to do this, it's probably still going to have to sell for $400 or more to cover your overhead, which is probably why we have not seen anyone selling such a device that comes out of the box ready to slap into a home theater.
I don't know anyone who had built an XBMC box and had fun getting it all to work. Once it is set up it's a dream but it's not something for a non tinkerer to take on.
- Geeba - 2010-11-30
"However your logic is flawed. MS doesn't make shit on the sale of an Xbox. It has been a money loser from day one. They make money when you buy games and accessories (and now, rentals, etc) for the Xbox. So all the people who bought an Xbox and ran XBMC on it, MS made zero"
Pretty well know fact round these parts!
and my exact point... they got there name out there... from zero in the console market to number 1! by shifting tin! Hence if boxee open the doors to xbmc they shift 10 times the amount of tin! people rave about it and more people buy it.... boxee 2 (or boxee with less bugs version 1 and a half) hits the ground running with a massive user base... I'm in for starters.. I like it.. my mates want it the same as the Xboxes I did for them.. heck even my Mum, sister, brother, father in-law... etc has an Xbox!
Also this was written in 2006.... I'd be very supprised with Foxcon or Flextronics banging these devices out day and night - if uncle Bill isnt keep his charities very happy by now of the back of the Xbox...
According to iSuppli’s most recent analysis, the premium version of the Xbox 360 game machine equipped with hard disk drive has a manufacturing and materials total of $323.30, based on an updated estimate using costs in the fourth quarter of 2006. This total is $75.70 less than the $399 suggested retail price of the Xbox 360. Even though it is obvious that Microsoft still has to subtract freight, toll, retail partner’s profit and other possible charges, it is highly likely that Microsoft has either managed to reduce its loss to minimal, or is making a tiny profit selling the $399 flavour of the Xbox 360.
- voip-ninja - 2010-11-30
Ah yes, that's probably true on the 360, but they never made a profit on the original Xbox hardware, which was rumored to cost as much as $100 more than they sold the machines at.
In any event, being forced to close telnet has been confirmed by Boxee via Twitter post as being done to appease content providers.
So, there ya have it. Content providers don't want to green light their software on "easy" to hack boxes.
- poofyhairguy - 2010-11-30
voip-ninja Wrote:Content providers don't want to green light their software on "easy" to hack boxes.
And that is why we say "Long Live XBMC" so we can enjoy media how we want to, not how the content providers want us to.
Boxee is yet another canary in the coal mine, more proof that the restrictions that the media overlords think we will accept we won't accept.
The only long term solution (long after Boxee is dead) is to continue to do what we do, help more people enjoy their content without their rules and one day the overlords will realize that the options aren't "they do what we tell them or they get nothing" but instead is "if we want to stay in business we need to make our content convient."
- BAG_Ass - 2010-11-30
poofyhairguy
good speech. unfortunately they don`t hear us and just add obstracles for us
- topfs2 - 2010-11-30
The point geeba makes is that if XBMC runs on it, more people will buy it. The more that buy it the more know about it. And in the end it will probably be more people buying it for the boxee experience than in the first place (since they get free PR) and both boxee and dlink would earn more money.
Also another point which I'm trying to make is that since boxee is based on xbmc it stands to reason that if we work on it (without a hack or jailbreak) more devs would help making it work good. If xbmc works good on it so will boxee as its sharing alot of code.
And yes, the telnet thing got closed because of content providers. Which is the strategy I don't like, boxee really ought to explain for them that they won't loose anything by opening for xbmc, its not a breach of security in any way (in terms of netflix.). I agree that they should close any rooting or jailbreaking of the linux they are using, from a security standpoint it should be rock solid. What they should have though is a keycommand to allow anyone to install another OS from say a SD, or boot from SD. Much like the Android development phones have had, the preinstalled OS is considered secure and should be unrootable but anyone is free to install a new one.
This way is a win-win for all parties. Netflix is secure since if you install a new OS obviously it wouldn't help getting access to the DRM content and xbmc community can make xbmc run better on it which help boxee software to run good on it. So all in all this is what I'm refering about when I say I don't like their decisions and strategy, not that they shouldn't make money. I don't care if they make money out of it, infact I probably like that they do so they could continue to make the box (given that it would be open). Also they contribute back so if they earn money they can (if they want to) continue to contribute.
Cheers,
Tobias
- voip-ninja - 2010-11-30
I would imagine that Avner, Tom and others have been fighting this battle and losing it. Ultimately they aren't independently wealthy funding Boxee development, so I imagine that they are doing what they have to do in order to get premium content on their machine.... in order to appease the stakeholders in Boxee.
If you'd like to take a crack at convincing Netflix, Walmart (Vudu) and Hulu (CBS, NBC, Fox, etc) that openly running XBMC is a good idea, then I'm sure Avner Ronen is waiting to hear from you!
The reality is that boxes running XBMC and the like terrify content providers.... and nothing Boxee do is going to change their mind about it.
- poofyhairguy - 2010-11-30
BAG_Ass Wrote:unfortunately they don`t hear us
We are being heard. That is why they keep throwing up new restrictions.
The future I put forth- where they lack the control of the distribution of their content- is the biggest nightmare possible for the media overlords. Their entire business model hings on creating an artificial pricing structure that is basically "what the market can bear." For years because the laws protected them they had no one to compete with when it came to distributing their media, and they got used to this arrangement.
In 2010 anyone with broadband can distribute their media, and because enforcement of older laws can't keep up with new technologies they suddenly have this secondary market to deal with that is much worse than they ever imagined in the 1980s (free!).
Restrictions on things like Netflix and Hulu exist because:
A. Some don't understand how piracy works, they assume we would rather get their media from low quality streams on the internet rather than upload high quality content from their disks.
B. They still feel they have enough control on the situation that if they give us a little ground and put their stuff on the net that we will accept the arbitrary limitations they decide to tie to this digital distribution of information. Of course they are wrong about this.
The best path forward is to continue to use technological solutions to overcome these restrictions and beat every form of DRM they lay before us. Every pluggin for XBMC that forces a web-only site (hulu/netflix) onto a ten foot interface takes the wind from their sales (pun on purpose). Every tiny PC that hits the market with the ability to run these pluggins create an environment for XBMC to grow with no restrictions. We will win, one nettop and pluggin at a time.
With that said, I don't fault the Boxee folks. They got caught in the ultimate Catch-22:
Without nerds, no one would know what Boxee is. Without the recommendations of their nerd friends and family, no random normal person is gonna go buy a Boxee Box when there are so many Netflix enabled Blu Ray players available. But we won't recommend a box that is locked down. Boxee is quickly losing whatever geek cred it had.
The overlords won't give Boxee a sweetheart deal (as in "we don't care if your box is locked down") because it is too small. But Boxee needs the overlord's content to be of use to regular people for nerds to recommend it to them in the first place. Hence the catch-22.
If Google couldn't get Hulu type content with its resources, Boxee is screwed. Boxee's business plan failed long before the box ever hit the market.
Boxee's only chance at this point is to give up on Netflix support and throw its lot in with the community. Open up a pluggin architecture that allows us to do the dirty work of forcing Netflix/Hulu onto the box and then rely on word of mouth rather than stickers on the box to sell the product. Monetize Boxee through advertisements on the website, and hang the longterm success on the high sales of the Boxee box. They need to HELP get XBMC on the box. If Boxee sells a lot of boxes, someone like Panasonic will scoop them up to put the technology in their TVs (ala Plex). It is the only path forward with any chance of success....
- teaguecl - 2010-11-30
poofyhairguy Wrote:If Google couldn't get Hulu type content with its resources, Boxee is screwed.I think this is the best observation on the topic in this whole thread. Boxee is dependent on Big Media for their revenue. Big Media is so big, and so greedy, that not even Google finds it affordable to do business with. When the content providers remove their heads from their rears and decide to get on board, Boxee will be their least favorable option - which won't matter because Boxee will have not met payroll for years by then.
- BAG_Ass - 2010-12-01
poofyhairguy
Ok. agree!
but they hear our words a lot of spoiled. in russian it called broken phone. People talk to them do one and they do perfectly opposite.
I ready to put boxeebox to wardrobe`s dust shelf until xbmc times.
- CrashX - 2010-12-01
Looks like the FOX, ABC, NBC shows are being fixed for Boxee Box:
http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=23380
For now, you can use third party app ( Navi-X ) to view them.
- Geekzilla - 2010-12-01
I wish D-Link would just package the same hardware and sell an open version without Boxee's software/restrictions. The WRT54GL sold really well based on the expectation of technically astute users flashing our own firmware. There's no reason D-Link (or others) can't follow the same model, just replacing the Boxee specific case and remote.
That said, I expect the unofficial cracks in the armour to appear once Netflix and Hulu are actually released for the Boxee Box.