Popcorn Hour's A-110 HD media streamers gets hands-on treatment

While we can only imagine that the lead time for one of Popcorn Hour's A-110 HD media streamers is at least a week or so judging by the demand of the predecessor, at least one of these things has managed to make its way out. CNET's UK branch was able to wrap their paws around the latest Networked Media Tank, and while they did note that the design was essentially the same, the changes that were made (HDMI 1.3a in particular) were "seriously worthwhile." For a brief preview and a few more shots, check out the read link below.

[Thanks, John]

[TheGeektoriousBIG @ Aug 12th 2008 11:21PM]

Ahh yes!!! Pre-Order time.

[JohnTitor @ Aug 12th 2008 11:24PM]

yup, the last media box you're ever need

[Marshall @ Aug 12th 2008 11:37PM]

I have my A110 sample, and the B110 motherboard as well. Unboxing vid is up at youtube (well, after it finishes processing)...it's nothing special, but folks like that sort of thing. Full review will be on the podcast in the upcoming weeks.

Marshall
The Real HT Info Podcast

[bigazzknocks @ Aug 13th 2008 12:10AM]

Still happy with my Xbox 1. Once they get GPU decoding implemented and get h.264 to work, there won't be any reason to change devices anymore.

[cesium @ Aug 13th 2008 12:11AM]

Yeah... that's not gonna happen. I HIGHLY doubt that the GPU is capable of processing the video, and the xbox can't even do 1080p. It's only useful for SD content (and if it doesn't break like mine :()

[giuliop @ Aug 13th 2008 5:09AM]

@cesium

I wouldn't exchange my XBOX 1 for anything else. Yes, it's only good for SD, but it's the most stable and flexible media player around. If mine would break, I'd buy another pronto: best $50 ever spent.

[mcatrage @ Aug 13th 2008 6:58AM]

XBMC just went into feature freeze the plan is in 2 months to release a stable release of the linux, mac, and windows ports. I'd ditch my xbox for hd content but still keep xbmc.

[mikejonas @ Aug 13th 2008 1:19AM]

Question: I gather it does MKV (rare for a gadget like this), and that it does high-def, but is it explicitly able to play back high-def video in MKV format?

[Ryback @ Aug 13th 2008 2:25AM]

Mikejonas: I have the A-100 and it is able to play HD content from MKV-files.

[Rich @ Aug 13th 2008 7:16AM]

It also plays ISO files, which is an awesome feature.

[Jonyah @ Aug 13th 2008 9:21AM]

there isn't anything these devices don't play. I've been waiting for reviews of this one. about to fix up the rest of my house with one of these on each tv. I never stream to my 360 or ps3 anymore now that I have one. so much easier and better feature mix.

[GorillaSalsa @ Aug 13th 2008 5:40AM]

Ordering this on the 5th of September as soon as my next paycheck comes in. Totally worth the wait.

[Eric Jackson @ Aug 13th 2008 7:18AM]

I'm still totally happy with my A-100, an A-110 would be useless for me since I still connect to my TV via RCA. I will definitely look into the A-110 if I ever get a TV with HDMI.(I have a 20" widescreen on my computer hooked up via DVI, so that is where I watch my HD content, and I use my A-100 for whenever someone wants to watch a movie on the TV.)

SATA harddrives is also a very nice feature, I had to buy an IDE especially for my A-100 because all I have sitting around are SATA, which will make it easier to switch to the A-110 in the future.

[Alex @ Aug 13th 2008 7:24AM]

This post was lost in the ad.

14th comment. Woot.

[JSB @ Aug 13th 2008 8:20AM]

MKV is just a container. Like a zip file. PH will work with MKV files but sometimes the author has a high bit rate or out of spec encode and the PH will not play it. A (very) soon to be released firmware is supposed to help out with the high bit rate issue.

BTW once you go MKV... you will not touch an Xvid... you become a Hi-Def snoob. Plan on buying a NAS...

[vic @ Aug 13th 2008 8:53AM]

will this update play out of spec encodes?? because as of right now, there is no HA available for profile 5 encodes and I was under the impression there wouldn't be.

It would be remarkable they find a way to playback high profile encodes.

[Jonyah @ Aug 13th 2008 9:25AM]

very true. I have over 2 terabytes of HD content now all using the mkv container and absolutely hate watching anything less. I started with a cheap NAS, but ended up just putting together a win2k8 server to stream everything. I never liked having a hdd in my popcorn because it seemed to churn when nothing was even being played (may have been due to it being an older drive), plus, once I add the other popcorns to the house, they'll all be able to pull from the same server.

[7on @ Aug 13th 2008 8:56AM]

W00t! Aug4-5 preorders are shipping the 28th! Good thing I ordered mine the 4th :p

Retiring the old Xbox for something that can use SATA drives, as I won't be buying any new IDE drives anytime soon (plus I'm getting an HDTV before the year's out :D )

[Carl @ Aug 13th 2008 9:26AM]

OK, so time for a naive question from a mostly-happy A100 customer... What does HDMI 1.3a gain for me over the current device?

The only complaint I have about the A100 is that both it and my Echo* DVR have their HDMI outputs permanently "lit" (even in standby), and that confuses the heck out of my HDMI 4x2 switcher (Monoprice, yay!). Switching between the two is so unreliable that I gave up and put the A100 on the 2nd HDMI input on the TV and left everything else on the switch.

Would HDMI 1.3a switch/sync more reliably?

[Neeko @ Aug 13th 2008 10:11AM]

i was about to pull the trigger on the A100 but decided to just buy a mac mini and use my NAS with that. Once the firmware on the PH gets bttr ill buy another for my bedroom TV. PLEX on the mini blows the PH away.

[BluesK1d @ Aug 13th 2008 11:42AM]

At 4x the price, I should hope so.

[Sean @ Aug 13th 2008 10:42AM]

Still no cover art interface? meh...

[7on @ Sep 9th 2008 12:29PM]

You can run iLink on it. That'll give you coverart

[GamerJunkie @ Aug 14th 2008 12:08AM]

Tired of Xvid torrent links getting more seeds than MKV torrents. It's almost a 20:1 ratio of idiots who still thinks Xvid is the only compressed format.

Many encoders are also tired of re-encoding HD content for those Xvid lamers.

[Charles @ Sep 1st 2008 5:13PM]

Newbie question:

These work in North America? I ask as I don't see any places selling it in Canada or U.S. ( making sure its not a PAL / NTSC thing )

[ehwwong @ Sep 5th 2008 8:24AM]

Personally i feel that the new HDX 1000 player has more feature and offer more value for money!

[insomnian @ Sep 18th 2008 4:00AM]

well, first of all i am very dissapointed with the quality of PCH A110. As you could read on the support forums at www.networkedmediatank.com it has numerous firmware failures. Some people receive their A110 already non-functional. That is totally unappropriate. It would be great if engadget could make a note and warn potential popcornhour a100/a110 buyers.
My problem with A110 is described below
=====
I have pushed Power + DELETE button (documented feature of PCH A110 for powering off the unit, simply pushing Power button is for stand-by) - A110 turned off.
In an hour or so when I wanted to turn my A110 on i pushed Power button - nothing happened. I pushed it for some time and then disconnected A110. After i plugged in power supply I only saw blank black screen, no boot up sequence or whatsoever.
I read through all treads relating to power up problem, read Wiki, tried to power it up without internal HDD, tried connecting it to TV using different cables, pushing TV mode + numeric buttons (0,7, etc) - nothing! Just nothing!
I was waiting for this NMT thing for almost 2 months being one of the first to order it. And it's such a shame that it fails even to boot up!
=====
the complete tread with numerous replies with the same problem and no solution (except RMA it and get money back) could be read following this link
http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=8124

[edsel6502 @ Sep 25th 2008 5:26AM]

The A-110 has serious quality and firmware issues.

You are rolling the dice with the A-110.

The following is my story with unit

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=8470