HD Media Player: Popcorn Hour A-100

Post by **DJF3** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:34 am

Just received my new media player. After using the KiSS DP-558 for many years (very happy with it!) I just received the Popcorn Hour A100.
http://www.popcornhour.com

What does it do?
Check out the PCH website. In a nutshell:
<ul>
<li> Supports HDMI and component up to 1080p, 10/100 Ethernet </li>
<li> it plays Movies (incl. H264/MKV/Divx/Xvid/etc), Music and Pictures that are on a local (optional) harddrive, NAS or other server in the network. </li>
<li> it streams media from the internet to your TV: Youtube, Google Video, MetaCafe and many other blogs and podcasts. For radio: shoutcast. Peer-to-peer TV: Saya TV </li>
<li> it plays pictures from your image providers like flickr, picasa etc. </li>
<li> it connects to any RSS feeds like traffic info, weather, autoweek.nl, etc. </li>
<li> has limited browsing capabilities. I'm working on a usable interface to Homeseer. Not because it is the most practical thing ever. Only because it is possible. Isn't that enough [:)] </li>
<li> it has a bittorrent client that works if you put a harddrive in the device (haven't played with this yet - thinking about getting a huge flash-card) </li>
</ul>

You open the box (warranty remains!) and see.... nothing plus some nothing and then a print just larger than a creditcard [:)] haha. That's all.

The good
-It plays virtually every file you can find
-Many features
-A lot of development is going on
-Supports some kind of web-browsing (working on the HomeSeer integration now)
-Small, silent and cool (if you don't put the optional harddrive in it)
-It has an ethernet port, adding to my list http://www.domoticaforum.eu/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=546

The less good
-User interaction could be better (GUI, remote control design)
-Speed up in general (internet connection, browsing, GUI responsiveness)

Conclusion
Brilliant device, especially for this price. Plays HD content perfectly. Heck, I might even buy another one!

There's quite some info missing in this message but the following URL's might satisfy you information hunger. Checkout the wiki, it's very good.
More info:
Forum: http://www.networkedmediatank.com
Wiki: http://www.networkedmediatank.com/wiki/ ... /Main_Page
Review: http://www.kolbu.com/popcorn-hour-nmt-n ... ank-a-100/
Lots of info: http://www.mpcclub.com (has created some good guides!)
Price: $180 + $45 shipping + tax (customs) or just buy it at divxplayer.nl

Cheers
DJ

Post by **Noel** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:59 am

Nice.

I also have KiSS DP-558 HD recorder, and I'm loving it.
Only problem with it is that I can not "stream" DVD's (that I have on my PC) to the DP-558.
It does work, but I need to 'recode' the DVD files to one big file 1st :/

The Popcorn Hour A100 does looks interesting

--
Never start anything you can't fi

Post by **Snelvuur** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:39 pm

It does not do .iso files either .. if it did that i might get one too. And does it support h.264 codec? (or the one thats for HD movies)

// Erik (binkey.nl)

Post by **AenG** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:03 pm

I'am waiting for this device Grabn'GO Media Giant !

http://www.hdtvnieuws.nl/hdtv/conceptro ... troductie/

Geert

Post by **Snelvuur** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:10 pm

Dont see .mkv support / 264 codec on that one aswell. Looks more like a mediacenter pc. Then you can just as well go for the windows "mediaportal" installation which is basicly a windows version of XBMC.

If only they could speed up things with the linux port for XBMC.. that would rock. (even for you windows freaks)

// Erik (binkey.nl)

Post by **DJF3** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:18 pm

KiSS: no H264, no streaming of DVD's or ISO's.
PCH A100: H264, playing remote ISO's, streaming of DVDs not tested yet.

As the Popcorn Hour can play a whole bunch of streaming media I'm looking forward to get 'Uitzending gemist' on the box. Haven't been able to get it to work though

Post by **Mhwlng** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 6:29 pm

there seems to be a whole range of these networked media tank devices now, all using the same chip&firmware :

e.g.

http://www.istarhd.com/ (I read that it has a fan unlike the popcorn)

I just pre-orderded one of these for $219.00 (ex. shipping/tax)

http://hdx1080.com/content/view/72/101/

it is made of 1.5kg aluminium, has a bunch more connections (no component) and has no fan...

Marcel

Post by **Snelvuur** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 6:48 pm

That hdx1080.com.. it says
DVD RIP Format: ISO, IFO

But does that mean it will rip it to ISO, or that it plays .ISO files?

// Erik (binkey.nl)

Post by **Mhwlng** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 6:57 pm

I don't know. I doubt that it can rip dvd's

I see on the wiki faq :

>>Can I plug in an external DVD rom?
>>Yes you can, the USB port can support an external DVD rom.
>>However, the sigma 8635 chip does not support CSS encryption.
>>Your DVD must not be CSS protected.

>>Why can't I view my DVD .iso file using MyiHome?
>>Myihome does not support DVD playback.
>>Please use SMB/NFS for playback instead.

maybe DJF3-2 tried this ?

all 3 NMT devices should have identical software functionality.

Marcel

Post by **Mhwlng** » Fri May 02, 2008 4:16 pm

I just received my hdx1080 from china.

I haven't added a (SATA) hard disk yet.

I use a synology DS107+ to serve movies with twonkymedia 4.4.4.i installed on it as uPnP av media server (so I don't use the built-in synology uPnP server).

so the NMT device is the uPnP av renderer

(I don't think that I want to use the NMT device for music/photos)

I have some 1900x1080 MPEG2TS test movies from pioneer/panasonic and they stream fine without stuttering (looks much better than on my PC (using zoomplayer and various MPEG2 directshow filters))...

I only have one 1900x1080 WMV/ASF (BBC planet earth intro) test movie and that stutters, but It does that on my fast PC as well (even with the file on the pc's local hard disk)...

I still need to get some proper blu-ray files to test (I think that they are 28Gb files!)...

I found that I can remotely select, start and stop a particular movie using uPnP :

I used this open source c++ toolkit :

http://sourceforge.net/projects/platinum/

and I used the supplied example program : MicroMediaController.exe

so my pc is the uPnP av control point

I'm still investigating : if it is possible to make a girder plugin using this toolkit, to start streaming a particular movie (from netremote/girder)...

and then using either the irtrans device or also uPnP to play/stop/pause/ffwd etc.

that way I could use Netremote to control everything and I would never need to use the infrared remote control...

(my current solution for movies involves a pc and zoomplayer, which can be easily remote controlled)

Marcel

Post by **Jfn** » Fri May 02, 2008 6:47 pm

If I may ask, what where the total costs including taxes? I Know shipping charges are about USD 45,-

Additional charges are import duties, VAT and possibly the courier charging you for the paperwork involved in passing the unit through customs.
<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by mhwlng
 
I just received my hdx1080 from china.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Als het niet gerepareerd kan worden dan is het niet kapot!

Post by **Mhwlng** » Fri May 02, 2008 6:54 pm

the description on the commercial invoice from shenzen china was :
'hard disk box' US$ 55,-
free sample without commercial value
So far, I have not received an invoice for VAT/import duty (YMMV [8D] )...

I made use of a special discount (now no longer available)
and I paid 184,49 EUR = US$219.00 + US$56 Shipping

Post by **Jfn** » Fri May 02, 2008 8:41 pm

Sounds interesting [:)]

Btw, one can pre-order the Popcornhour again on the popcornhour website.

I was thinking of ordering a unit for the occasional viewing of material on the TV in the living room. Including taxes the PCH would cost me about E 180,-

However, I have owned similar units before (among them a TVIX-4100) and my experience with these kind of units is that the time-to-market is very short and thus these units lack stability. I also got rid of the 4100 because of firmware issues.

And the cheaper these units are going to get, the less money there is left to support them (firmware updates; Developing software does not come cheap)

I fitted my PC with an extra videocard and use the PC to play material from my own collection and the internet. Works flawlessly and no strange firmware problems or whatsoever.

Als het niet gerepareerd kan worden dan is het niet kapot!

Post by **Mhwlng** » Fri May 02, 2008 8:51 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">And the cheaper these units are going to get, the less money there is left to support them (firmware updates; Developing software does not come cheap)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I only got the thing for 5 minutes and already ran into a nasty bug [:D]
I thought that I had some weird HDMI hardware problem with my Samsung TV

But, I just found it in the confirmed bug list :

1) When playing SD Divx movie, after pressing STOP the screen will turn black and will not return to GUI for a long time - Working on a fix

Marcel

Post by **Snelvuur** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 6:56 am

http://www.1dayfly.nl/ <- still 6 hours to go for a popcorn a110..

// Erik (binkey.nl)