boxeehacks / boxeehack

Hack that enables root access to the Boxee Box, provides a new updated Skin with some improved features, and a number of services to access the box such as telnet access

BoxeeHack

The BoxeeBox is quite a capable media player. At its core it is a modified version of XBMC with a number social media sharing features added on. However those modifications also limit what you can do with the Box, and removes some of the standard XBMC features.

Recently a hack was discovered that allows for full root access to the box: http://www.gtvhacker.com/index.php/Boxee

This project is an attempt at returning some of the missing features and opening up a development path for creating new features and fixing existing annoyances.

What does it do?

• Root access telnet support (password is "secret")
• FTP server
• Music icon added to the main screen and menu
• Fan Art on movie details page
• Fan Art on tv show overview page
• 3D Movie overlay icon
• Music / Concert overlay icon
• Extra view mode for movies (small posters)
• Mark all TV Show episodes watched or unwatched with one button
• Custom browser home page
• More music visualisers (+ customisable)
• Updated busybox, and added git, nano and sqlite3 tools
• Improved buffering for Full HD videos
• Tweaked MTU if you're using a VPN/PPP connection
• Rewritten subtitle system (BierDopje, OpenSubtitles, Subtitulos, SubsWiki, Addic7ed)
• Special BoxeeHack settings menu
• Reboot option
• No more forced updates
• Check for new versions

Requirements

Of course you'll need a Boxee Box for this, and you'll also need an empty USB stick.

Also make sure you are on the latest firmware (1.5.1), since this hack has only been tested with that version. Particularly some skin features are used that will probably not work on older Boxee builds, and even may leave your box in an unbootable state, requiring you to do a factory reset.

This exact version can be downloaded at, and installed through the recovery mode:

http://dl.boxee.tv/version/dlink.dsm380/1.5.1.23735/boxee.iso

Installing

Installing is very simple. Get a USB stick and format it. Name the new volume BOXEE. Then download the zip from github and put the contents of the "install" folder on the USB stick. In the stick's root there should be these entries:

• install.sh
• debug.sh
• uninstall.sh
• support

On your BoxeeBox go to Settings -> Network -> Servers. Check "Enable Windows file sharing" and in the "Host Name" field enter "boxeebox; sh /media/BOXEE/install.sh". As soon as you back out of that menu you should see the Boxee logo on your BoxeeBox turn red. This means it's installing. This should take a while, because it's downloading the hack including the modified skin. After it's done the Boxee UI should restart and your new features await!

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YrjAqPqM30 for a video walkthrough of the process on the Boxee Box See: http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=63248 for additional help and information. See: http://boxeeplus.com/ for other info.

If for some reason the hack disappears (which is still an issue with this version), just go into Settings -> Network -> Servers again and enter "boxeebox; sh /data/hack/boot.sh". After another reboot the hack should work (again).

Uninstall

There are two ways to disable this hack if you want to. The quick way is to go into Settings -> Network -> Servers, and enter a new hostname (which now contains the hack), just remove everything in the edit field and type e.g. boxeebox. Then switch the boxee box off and back on again. You now no longer have the hack running, and everything should be back to normal.

You can also reenable it by adding in: "; sh /data/hack/boot.sh;" into that same hostname field again in the future.

If you want to completely uninstall you can run the uninstaller on your USB stick. Just go into Settings -> Network -> Servers, and change your hostname into "boxeebox; sh /media/BOXEE/uninstall.sh".

If you want to you can also uninstall manually:

Log in to the boxee box over telnet with: telnet [your-boxee-ip] 2323 Type in the password "secret" Edit the boxeehal.conf file in /data/etc/boxeehal.conf using either vi or nano and remove the hack from the password field (or use the earlier instructions to disable the hack, however without rebooting). Then remove the hack with: rm -Rf /data/hack

boxeehack's Issues

When activating the hack, try to keep the existing settings in boxeehal.conf functional

Watch Later - Not working

I noticed when the hack is enabled the watch later for movies doesn't work.

Add Audio Delay (offset) settings

If this enhancement can be done #57 (Add Audio Output device settings to be set to Airplay capable devices)

It will be really really useful to have this Audio Delay settings available, because when streaming audio to the Airport Express, the delay must be set to something like 1,600s.

Like the XBMC settings here:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Video_playback

thanks if this can be implemented !
and congratulations for your works on this boxeehack ;)

Add new VPN shortcut in the main browser section.

In the Back pop up menu just next to the settings to add a VPN icon.

Better view fanart

Either make it accessible as a fullscreen thing somewhere? Or maybe lighten the background. Though shouldn't impact readability of the text on the page.

Also look into what we can do to add it to the other views on the episodesview (without uglifying it ;) )

chown missing

easy peasy to include this bin which might be helpful to others

Look into ways of running boot.sh at startup time without the boxeehal.conf hack

More robust installation process

Improve regexp's in sed commands in installer

Automatic fanart downloading

The added fanart function is awesome. What would be even more awesome is if the boxee box could download the fanart files automatically.
Several reasons for this, among others:
You might run an application on your computer to download fanart for your entire library once, but what happens when you add new shows and movies? You're probably not going to rescan and redownload every time?

Also the applications I've tried all try to identify my media, not only wasting time by performing a job already done by the boxee box but sometimes failing or misidentifying (sure, the box isn't perfect in this area but at least the fanart will match the media identity on the box)

Different home screen feeds (e.g. youtube trends)

Change default search engine in the browser

Look at using custom scrapers

Photo Screensaver Fix

Is it possible to remove the pan and zoom effects on photos displayed in the screensaver? It would be good if the settings applied to the slideshow were mirrored in the screensaver.

Different sort modes?

Figure out if it's possible to e.g. add Album Artist sort, or Year sort in Album view, or add date sort to tv show view.

Improved airplay support

Current airplay support is unstable. Audio controls tend to freeze if you try to navigate too much. Video also has similar issues.

An improved or replaced airplay subsystem would be great.

Custom trailers for movies (using .nfo)

Mark all episodes watched in TV Show or Season

List of options to migrate away from Boxee's servers

• Scrapping movie and TV data
• Homepage videos (In progress of being switched to local new videos added)
• Login option (Possibly skip trying to contact Boxee's servers and just do a local login)
• Sharing Function (Either disable this feature or run it through some other servers?)
• Friends (Disable, or run it through some other server?)
• Watch Later (I'm not sure if this depends on Boxee's servers?)
• Show Library (Replacement server - Somebody will need to manage online TV show's)

Please add to the list anything I might be forgetting.

More replacement options for Featured media

Jerbob92 has added the ability to replace the featured media section with recently added media, this is great!

But what would be even better is letting each user decide between the original featured media (as long as it lasts), recently added media or a custom rss feed - preferably with some presets such as latest trailers from traileraddict or latest news clips from cnn etc.

See if flash version can be upgraded

Can we please change the following shell script to the following (includes bash binary now)

!/bin/sh

VALID_PASSWORD="secret"

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH='.:/data/hack/lib:/opt/local/lib:/usr/local/lib:/usr/lib:/lib:/lib/gstreamer-0.10:/opt/local/lib/qt'
export PATH='/data/hack/bin:/opt/local/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/scripts'
export HOME='/data/hack'
export PS1='[\e]0;\u@\h: \w\a]${chroot:+($chroot)}\u@\h:\w$'

read -s -p "Password: " PASSWORD

echo ""
if [ "$PASSWORD" == "$VALID_PASSWORD" ]; then
echo "---------------------"
echo " Welcome to BoxeeBox "
echo "---------------------"

    cd /data/hack
    /data/hack/bin/bash

else
echo "Incorrect password"
fi

Make filename readable in movie details page

Disable Boot (Start Up Video) Sound?

Hey,

Any chance of muting the boot (start-up video) sound?

Really tired of it and muting my TV every time gets old.

Thanks,

Will

Customise music visualizers

They're ProjectM visualizers, so we have a whole bunch to choose from. Just need to select a few good ones.

Automatically activate SBS or OU 3D modes

If playing a HSBS or OU movie it would be very nice if boxee automatically switches to its special HSBS or OU 3D mode. See if this is possible...

Show current version number in the settings

Update Script

Please add an update script that we can launch from telnet until the settings/boxeehack version works.

Expand Boxee's default array of available Genres

This is a feature request / enhancement request.

If possible, it would be nice to have the box sort by custom genres as defined in user-generated .nfo files. By default, Boxee has a limited array of standard genres, according to this URL:

"The genres tag can include only the supported descriptors, they should be separated be space and
comma. “,”."

Genre List: ACTION, ADVENTURE, ANIMATION, COMEDY, CRIME, DOCUMENTARY, DRAMA,
FAMILY, FANTASY, FILM_NOIR, HISTORY, MUSIC, MUSICAL, MYSTERY, NEWS, ROMANCE,
SCI_FI, SHORT, SPORT, THRILLER, WAR, WESTERN

"Western?," "War?," "Sport?," these are not applicable Genres in my universe.

The ability to add "FOREIGN," "INDIE" and other user-defined genres would be wonderful. Thanks for considering it.

Version check based on revision

As we are moving forward to an auto-updater(or at least an updater).
I would recommend doing the version checking based on the revision.

I would also recommend using a seperate "development" branch, and merge back to master when it's ready to get pushed to users.

(maybe we could also make the hack a "git clone" on the boxee itself? Updating from a script would be easier then too)

Flash player depricated

Please update the flash-player inside the browser.
When visiting sites as for instance gametrailers.com - you are prompted with a message:

"Flash upgrade required - please visit get.adobe.com/flashplayer for the latest version".

Offer additional installer for users who want to keep the password clear

Offline mode (without needing Boxee servers)

Add icon overlays for 3D movies and concerts

I now bake in all overlays for this, but would be extra cool to just have in the skin based on the movie genre field...

Look at adding additional subtitle sources

Add Audio Output device settings to be set to Airplay capable devices

If it's possible add the "Audio output device", to be able to set an Airport Express device as output audio device.

like in the default settings window of XBMC :
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Settings/System#Audio_output

Add fanart to TV shows

For some users after install network settings don't work in GUI anymore

Browser

I'm not sure if this is just me, but I'm getting and unexpected error when trying to launch the browser.

Autoplay next video like the one in music settings

Make a setting that allow you to play the next video in that local folder you watch a video in.

For some users the Boxee Box doesn't turn off properly anymore after installing the hack

Enhancement: Sort filelist by date

My wife always asks what the latest shows we have are I always go to shows then sort by recently added. But if you database gets hosed the recently added sorting gets borked, as one would expect it to. It would be nice to be able to go to files and sort it by filedate. This would also be useful for photos because different cameras have different file naming schemes.

Add option to go directly into TV Show overview

The idea would be to go into overview mode instead of "all seasons" mode. We would need to add a play last unplayed episode type of button though, with some info on that episode, to make it more similar to the movie details view (make it actionable).

Auto force aspect ratio videos that are 4:3 to 16:9.

Make a setting that allows you to Auto force aspect ratio videos that are 4:3 to 16:9.

unwatched filter in files browser

It would be great if I could filter the file browser to unwatched files in all subfolders. Right now if you have shows in folders you have to go into each folder to check if any shows are unwatched.

Display Fanart for "Flattened" TV Show Folders (Plus on All Seasons & Individual Seasons)

Like my Movies, I have all of my TV shows in individual folders, but I don't group episodes in seasons folders. I use Ember Media Manager for metadata and images. Here are the contents of a typical show:

Folder name:
Hammer House of Horror

Contents of folder:
fanart.jpg
folder.jpg
Hammer House of Horror.S01E02.SDDVD.mpg
Hammer House of Horror.S01E02.SDDVD.nfo
Hammer House of Horror.S01E02.SDDVD.tbn
tvshow.nfo

As it was explained to me, without episodes in individual seasons folders, fanart won't get displayed on the Overview tab. I'd love to see a solution for this.

Also, now that there's a separate BOXEEHACK option screen in Settings, I'd love to see an option to display TV Show fanart on the All Seasons and Individual Seasons screens. While I'm not really interested in season specific fanart, if you enabled this request, I'm sure some folks would love to see that implemented as well.

Thanks for you hard work!

Add watched status to the TV Shows list

If it is at all possible...

Rename my music to music, dutch translation does not fit homescreen

In the homescreen THE my music is translated in dutch to mijn muzi...
It cuts of THE last two letters. It would also be more compliant with THE other categories if there were no "my" in front.

No major issue of course ;)

Add option to reboot in sleep, shutdown, logout window

Add uninstaller

Improvements to Cast and Crew screen?