Hulu Proxy

[tarka]

Have just downloaded Boxee and so far absolutely love it.

Only thing is that I'm in the UK and as such, Hulu (and other such sites) streaming is not possible out of the box(ee :). There are apparently ways to circumvent this site checking (such as hotspot shield), but presumably this would require tweaking to the Hulu URLs to pass through a proxy, which I don't think is possible without digging.

What would be great would be for Boxee to support this kind of proxying behaviour, or even build in a list of available proxies (maybe from an RSS feed) to choose from.

cheers, and keep up the excellent work!

tarka

[agentlame]

already in there:
settings > network > proxy.

[tarka]

already in there:
settings > network > proxy.

But isn't that a global setting for all services? Ideally, I'd like to just proxy the services that require it and not everything... (not sure what the upshot of that may be as per traffic load - I'm not a proxying genius :)

I'll have a play and report back if I manage to get everything working.

[agentlame]

it is global... but it is easy to toggle on/off.
which shouldn't be too bad... i mean you only watch/listen one thing at a time.

[oliv]

wow cool.

but will this make the streaming noticeable slower ?

oli

[oliv]

could this help aswell ?

http://ettercap.sourceforge.net/

[NPerez]

wow cool.

but will this make the streaming noticeable slower ?

oli

yes. adding a middleman to a connection will always slow things down, but you can minimize it to an acceptable level by finding a nice proxy server.. some will be unusably slow, while others are barely noticeable.

[poprock]

Being able to set separate proxies for each internet media source would be a really great feature.

For example, I’m in the UK and really want to be able to watch iPlayer through Boxee … but would love to be able to also watch Hulu and Ninjavideo on Boxee through a proxy. That would let me watch major US TV shows without needing to bother with torrents etc.

The whole point of a media centre is to make everything simple enough to click through with a remote control—so changing a global proxy when I want to change channel isn’t really a satisfactory solution (though it’s more than acceptable in an alpha release!)

[iBog]

A public proxy will most likely slow your connection down (even though it could also be used to cache content). Imagine 1000+ people trying to stream video from one proxy. That proxy will run out of bandwidth very fast.

However, I discovered a new and amazing use for my D-Link network attached storage device (DNS-323). I have setup SSH on this device and can use it to tunnel traffic from work through my home Internet connection (and bypass any firewalls). I travel alot for work. Last year I was living in Saudi Arabia and have been to various countries in the Middle East. This would have been the perfect device to allow me to bypass the filtering in place in many of these countries. It's so simple I could just give the device to a family member to drop onto their network and do a small configuration on their router. Much smaller footprint then a typical computer running Linux.

Maybe I need to find someone in the US willing to host one of these little devices on their network for me... I'll pay for your highspeed Internet :)

If Boxee is trying to negotiate partnerships with these broadcasters I don't think they'll want to rock the boat and flaunt Boxee as a way to bypass the broadcasters intent to only provide the content to people in the US.

[erikveland]

yes. adding a middleman to a connection will always slow things down, but you can minimize it to an acceptable level by finding a nice proxy server.. some will be unusably slow, while others are barely noticeable.Can anyone recommend a nice proxy server that would work well in Australia?

[erikveland]

Can anyone recommend a nice proxy server that would work well in Australia?
I've tried Hotspot Shield which gives me access, but everything just stutters. Anyone else had more success than me?

[sonicjihad]

already in there:
settings > network > proxy.

Could you please elaborate step by step. I went to boxee/network/proxee and checked the box. Went back to HULU and nothing. Could you please tell us NOOBS step by step what to do???????

[agentlame]

Could you please elaborate step by step. I went to boxee/network/proxee and checked the box. Went back to HULU and nothing. Could you please tell us NOOBS step by step what to do???????

there are no further steps... you need an american based proxy provider--a company that will give you an american ip to route your internet traffic through. some are listed if you read the entire thread, but none are free.
oops... this thread: http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=1099&highlight=give+hulu

the short answer is: there is no good/free solution for hulu outside of the states.

btw, snake river conspiracy?

[anshuman]

i wish we can work up something bout this .need good proxy ip . i got 1mb connection in mumbai india here but need good proxy.

[Floyd]

Hotspot shield works for me with Boxee on my macbook.

However, what I would like to do is SSH from my appletv to a machine either locally running hotspot shield and connect to a 127.0.0.1 socks, or SSH to my parents mac mini so I can get iPlayer (I live in Switzerland).

Maybe there is an easier proxy solution?

[raallf]

Why don't you port tunnel through SSH to a proxy thats at the other end (allowing 127.0.0.1 8080), or better still run Squid proxy on a local machine, you could then setup some rules on that machine based on your destination.

[robcoles]

As someone outside the UK.. I'd be very interested in the reverse switch.. so all in all a pretty good feature if it could be added.

SOCKS proxy off for Hulu and most other things, but on for the iplayer.. I'm lucky enough to have a server in the UK, where I can run my own SOCKS proxy and this works great for watching via a web browser on my PC, but something in the living room from boxee, would be a lot nicer!

[yee379]

just like to say that i too would like socks proxy functionality in boxee.

i'm based in the US, but i have my own personal server in the UK. i usually ssh with DynamicForward and use a pac file that will proxy anything with "bbc.co.uk/iplayer" through the tunnel.

something similar in boxee would be very nice.

i know the mac has a prefs pane under the network settings so that system wide support for pac files is available (ie all applications), but it tends to be a bit flaky. also i would prefer a linux htpc frontend for boxee - which doesn't (afaik) have similar settings available.

[paulhart]

I've been trying to get this working too, using an SSH client copied from the darwin distro and a US-based server. I'm using the following command with the client on the appletv:


/Users/frontrow/ssh -D 8080 -f -N root@209.x.y.z

I then go into the settings in Boxee and tell it to use a proxy located at IP 127.0.0.1 and port 8080.

When the proxy is being used, I can't even log into the boxee service, so something is clearly wrong (though it doesn't say that the internet is unavailable, so I guess that's good).

I'll see if the logs tell me anything useful and update this post with the results.

[miki]

Hi,

Setting the Proxy is not enough; I had to restart Boxee.

Still, HULU sees that you are not where the proxy is. It only worked after I blocked in my FW all connections that are not to the proxy.

Looking at the log, I found that HULU sent packets to ports 80,123 and 1935 that did not go through the proxy. Only when these were blocked I was able to watch HULU.

Same goes for browser watching of HULU.

In any event, the connection was choppy.

Good luck...

[pax85]

OK, since I don't want to pay for a proxie, just to watch hulu.
The proxie idea died for me :D

[ChronicD]

Hi there

I have set up foxy proxy on firefox with vidalia/tor proxy service to use bbciplayer outside of the uk.

foxy proxy allows for url patterning - meaning when a certain url is entered, it is routed from foxy proxy to tor and then the rest - ie the video content arrives without the proxy.

i have heard that this cannot be done with hulu but it does work for iplayer.

perhaps what boxee needs is a more complicated version of foxy proxy?

just my tuppence

D

[craemmir]

Hi there

I have set up foxy proxy on firefox with vidalia/tor proxy service to use bbciplayer outside of the uk.

foxy proxy allows for url patterning - meaning when a certain url is entered, it is routed from foxy proxy to tor and then the rest - ie the video content arrives without the proxy.

i have heard that this cannot be done with hulu but it does work for iplayer.

perhaps what boxee needs is a more complicated version of foxy proxy?

just my tuppence

D
More info please? Platform? stepbystep?

Thanks

[xanderp123]

AlwaysVPN (alwaysvpn.com) works well to access Hulu from outside the US. It is a paid service and, in my opinion, REALLY over priced. They are using OpenVPN on virtual servers from SliceHost. With a little know how, you can set up your own virtual server for $5 - 8 USD /mth which several people can use simultaneously (good if you want to split the $5 - 8 with friends so that you're only paying a few cents each).

Check out vpsville.com - they even offer virtual servers with OpenVPN pre-installed. Occasionally, they have promotions with coupon codes at the top of their home page. When I signed up, I got 25% off for life.

[Dannydeman]

I found a flawless working VPN solution. I use it on Spotify to use it outside the UK, it works with Hulu as well. Just register at ivacy.com (it is not free though, but not expensive). Costs around 10 dollars for 20GB of data. It's quite fast as well.

I don't think there are any good free solutions at the moment, looked into it before.

[paulzy]

I found a flawless working VPN solution. I use it on Spotify to use it outside the UK, it works with Hulu as well. Just register at ivacy.com (it is not free though, but not expensive). Costs around 10 dollars for 20GB of data. It's quite fast as well.

I don't think there are any good free solutions at the moment, looked into it before.

I just signed up for Ivacy and it's working good so far, paid $14 for 30 days unlimited use or you can also do 90 days for just $34 strange thing is that the ads always stutter and freeze but the video stream itself is perfect.

I know it's not free but it's a hell of alot cheaper than a cable subscription!