Hacking the Boxee Box to run XBMC?

nuzecast Wrote:I have a Boxee Box (2 actually) and it takes between 4-5 minutes to load my library of 200 TV shows (10,000 episodes).

Navigate into one of the shows and then go back to the show list and it starts all over again for 4-5 minutes.
If the screensaver kicks in it starts all over again for 4-5 minutes when you wake it.

Running XBMC on an XBOX takes 10 seconds to load my TV library !!!

Was really hoping to replace my XBOXs with these (really wanted an appliance replacement) but unless someone can figure out how to get XBMC on them, they are useless and frustrating.

Interesting. Thanks for this feedback. Are you running them wired or wireless?

nuzecast Wrote:I have a Boxee Box (2 actually) and it takes between 4-5 minutes to load my library of 200 TV shows (10,000 episodes).

Navigate into one of the shows and then go back to the show list and it starts all over again for 4-5 minutes.
If the screensaver kicks in it starts all over again for 4-5 minutes when you wake it.

Running XBMC on an XBOX takes 10 seconds to load my TV library !!!

Was really hoping to replace my XBOXs with these (really wanted an appliance replacement) but unless someone can figure out how to get XBMC on them, they are useless and frustrating.

This is because boxee doesn't cache all artwork all the time due to limited space 1GB. It will pull it from the internet.

In terms of hacking to support XBMC, it should be much easier to do then others. Here are few reason why:

1) It is Intel Based
2) Boxee Box has to release source that it did to XBMC to make it run on boxee box.
3) Boxee Box USB firmware image should be available soon according to the developers.

Wired, though I don't think that would matter ... this is just viewing the library ... locally stored (cached) information.

Edit: Sorry ,,, just read the post above .. I was unaware of this ... so it is pulling artwork every time I load the list Wow.

CrashX Wrote:This is because boxee doesn't cache all artwork all the time due to limited space 1GB. It will pull it from the internet.

In terms of hacking to support XBMC, it should be much easier to do then others. Here are few reason why:

1) It is Intel Based
.

It's actually SGX POWERVR based, which can quickly mean SOL, at least for Linux.

See the thread started a while ago:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...ight=boxee

There is much interest in the community for freedom on the box, the preference being to install both XBMC, and Boxee, and allowing the user a choice.

Edited by Mod: Threads merged.

YodaEXE Wrote:For the price you paid on that, wouldn't you have been better off just buying something like an Acer Revo, that you know you could install XBMC onto?

You can't buy a REVO for $200 anymore.

alex84 Wrote:Hey mate... Are you able to check if the boxee box support bitstream dts-hd ma to an capable reciver. Making the recivers dts-hdma logo light upp..

I have read around but can nail it if that will be supported. Cheers mate

Hey Alex84,

I just got my box today but I am working long hours so I've only had about 30 minutes with the thing. I can confirm that the Boxee Box (BB) does bitstream DTS-HD MA. It also supports Dolby TrueHD and it is supposed to bitstream it as well, but there is currently a bug that causes the BB to do the decoding on the BB and output as LPCM (Just like an ION box with XBMC). I also tried one of my movies with a 7-channel FLAC audio track and that worked as well. The BB locked up when I tried to play a file with a uncompressed multi-channel PCM track (Chris Botti Live). I only had time to play some MKV files so I can't comment on any other containers. If anybody else has any questions let me know. I'm happy to answer anything I can just don't expect any answers until Sunday afternoon because I have to work tomorrow too :-( Until then the AVS forum BB owners thread is a good place to find what you want to know.

-Bahndit

YodaEXE Wrote:For the price you paid on that, wouldn't you have been better off just buying something like an Acer Revo, that you know you could install XBMC onto?

Not a big deal to everyone but the Revo can't bitstream HD audio codecs either

-Bahndit

Bahndit Wrote:Hey Alex84,

I just got my box today but I am working long hours so I've only had about 30 minutes with the thing. I can confirm that the Boxee Box (BB) does bitstream DTS-HD MA. It also supports Dolby TrueHD and it is supposed to bitstream it as well, but there is currently a bug that causes the BB to do the decoding on the BB and output as LPCM (Just like an ION box with XBMC). I also tried one of my movies with a 7-channel FLAC audio track and that worked as well. The BB locked up when I tried to play a file with a uncompressed multi-channel PCM track (Chris Botti Live). I only had time to play some MKV files so I can't comment on any other containers. If anybody else has any questions let me know. I'm happy to answer anything I can just don't expect any answers until Sunday afternoon because I have to work tomorrow too :-( Until then the AVS forum BB owners thread is a good place to find what you want to know.

-Bahndit

Can you test XBMCLIVE from a USB stick?

Someone already telnet into the boxee box:

Quote:# uname -a
Linux boxeebox 2.6.28 #6 PREEMPT Thu Aug 12 11:39:42 CST 2010 i686 unknown
# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs 147.9M 147.9M 0 100% /
/dev/root 147.9M 147.9M 0 100% /
df: /ramtmp: No such file or directory
df: /ramtmp/p1: No such file or directory
df: /ramtmp/p2: No such file or directory
/dev/loop0 147.9M 147.9M 0 100% /
tmpfs 8.0M 24.0k 8.0M 0% /dev
tmpfs 300.0M 44.7M 255.3M 15% /tmp
tmpfs 8.0M 32.0k 8.0M 0% /var
/dev/Glob_Spectraa3 219.4M 19.1M 200.3M 9% /data
/dev/Glob_Spectraa4 218.9M 16.2M 202.8M 7% /download

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost....tcount=707