Popcorn Hour's A-110 HD media streamer / B-110 motherboard reviewed

If you've been putting off that purchase of Popcorn Hour's evolutionary A-110 HD media streamer or all new B-110 motherboard, here's a decent compilation of facts and opinions to help you make up your mind once and for all. The cats over at DigitalReviews took the time to not only detail, test out and report back on the newest duo from the company, but it also revisited the original (and heralded) A-100 in order to give a better comparison. Overall, critics did tend to prefer the A-110 over its predecessor, but the minor list of changes made it a hard sell for folks teetering on upgrading. The B-110 was seen as an even tougher sell, with only the hardcore DIY crowd likely to even find it worth investigating. Nevertheless, we won't spoil the rest for you -- head on down to have a look for yourself.

[Thanks, Anton]

[thecow5 @ Aug 18th 2008 1:05PM]

I currently own two A-100 and I can say its the best at handeling all formats put before it, its worth the buy, however the UI should have been inproved in the new A-110,
The UI is the only problem I have with this device

[zargon @ Aug 18th 2008 1:30PM]

I am looking to get one of these after the big move and things settle down. I have been looking for a repalcement for my dead Roku Photobridge and this really looks like it is it.

I really like the fact that this system is not dependant on anything else, which I think is a major problems with all current media streamers. I do not want to be forced to run a server application to stream my media. I just want to be able to plugin my NAS and go.

[gb @ Aug 18th 2008 2:23PM]

So you don't need to be running any other hardware for this to work? This is something that's been unclear to me about these devices. None of the info I've read actually says that, so I've been a bit confused about what this actually does. I'm currently using an old G5 to play my MKVs in my living room, but not surprisingly, there are a lot of hiccups when I'm playing them. Does the Popcorn Hour device basically take the place of the PC? I'm not looking to upgrade my old computer. And I can't upgrade the processor anyway.

[zargon @ Aug 18th 2008 3:41PM]

Nope, you don't need a server to run this. You can connect it to any network attached storage, whether it is a dedicated NAS, ethernet enabled drive, share on your computer, etc... and all it does is stream from it. You can also hook up a harddrive to it and transfer files to it, or even download directly to it using the embedded bittorrent client.

It makes the cost of ownership and maintanance pretty low computers to other systems.

[Information Central @ Aug 18th 2008 1:34PM]

Hm. This doesn't appear to be a "streamer". If you click on enough links to get to the actual page for the product (come on, Engadget), it doesn't really make any mention of this device doing streaming. It appears to be a device for playing content back on your TV, not streaming it.

If that's not the case, maybe someone will weigh in.

[Marshall @ Aug 18th 2008 2:10PM]

Depends on your definition of streaming, I suppose. The popcorn hour will playback video on your TV from a NAS, shared folder on a computer, or other networked storage over wired, and soon wireless, connection. It will also, with the addition of a Hard Drive, serve as a shared drive to serves files stored on the Popcorn Hour to other media devices.

Marshall
The Real HT Info Podcast

[Aaron @ Aug 18th 2008 2:15PM]

And it can also stream from online music services, YouTube, etc.

It isn't Vudu, Unbox or 360 Live (i.e. it isn't attached to a specific video streaming service) but it does stream.

-Aaron

[ubersalmon @ Aug 19th 2008 9:19AM]

It definately streams. What would be the point it if didn't?

[phanbouy @ Aug 18th 2008 3:00PM]

and it emboldens you to sign your comments

-phanbouy
-author of "how to lose a woman in 10 seconds"

[h0mi @ Aug 18th 2008 1:37PM]

So the popcorn is basically a CE streamer, not to be confused with a HTPC-like device? I don't understand offering the b110 motherboard- you'd have to put it in a case, and you could add optical drives to it but I'm not sure how that'd help.

[Broo @ Aug 18th 2008 4:44PM]

There are additional SATA ports on the B110 version- so you can add additional HD storage or a DVD-ROM- and these guys are supposed to be able to play DVDs from the VOBs (or ISOs). I think this model is for people that want to customize it with lots of local storage and use their own case + power supply...

oh- and it has a mini-pci slot for installing a WiFi card; the other models use USB only for WiFi.

HTPC is a very open term; I don't think this guy can record TV from a tuner, but it will play video/music/pictures and stream from various online sources.

[Fab @ Aug 18th 2008 4:48PM]

I have owned the A-100 for about 3-6 months now, and I have to say I am extremely disappointed with this device.

I thought many of the issues were just because it was early on in the adoption curve, but they would be resolved via firmware updates, but this has hardly been addressed.

1. It only accepts IDE drives so you are very limited to the size of drives you buy unless you also get a SATA adapter, at which point it makes fitting a SATA drive complex to say the least.
2. The device never turns off intelligently the drive, so if you have it in your bedroom this will be as noisy as the drive is under normal operation, as well as heat up to the point were you can hold the A-100 with your bare hands. and the needless power consumption.
3. When streaming with the software provided (myihome) from your PC, which you will most likely have to considering the small size IDE drives are for today's media, it will often fail, either not work right of the bat, or about 10 minutes into the movie it will completely stop working. In the event that it does actually work, the device hardly buffers any data, and because its does not come with a gigabit NIC, it will take really long to react when you decide to rewind or fast forward. Actually probably scratch that rewind comment, since you probably don't want to try the rewind button since it works very poorly under any condition, even with locally stored media. the only transfer method that seems to really work OK is to use a pen drive and copy the media you want to play back and forth sort of a sneaker network.
4. The resolution is at best deplorable, back with the march or so firmware, it seemed to work OK, but then something changed and it is never correct anymore. no matter which setting you chose you always end up getting a distorted image. I use the HDMI port to connect to a 1080p 40" Samsung TV, and most of the times I have to end up leaving the resolution as standard and watch the movie really just using about 28" of the total 40" of screen. Any other attempt will result in a really poor image. I also play this movies on a 30" monitor I have attached to my computer, and many times, I might be watching a movie on the monitor, and decide to go to my room and continue watching the movie, I sit about 3 feet from my 30" monitor, and about 8 feet from the 40" TV and the video degradation between the two is very noticeable.

About the only thing good with this device is the fact that it reads many encodings and its cheap, but really before you buy it you should consider either a used MacMini or a PS3, I had much better experience using my old MacMini with a DVI to HDMI cable converter, and there was so much more you could do, and the video quality was so much better. I really question the reviews I have read on the internet about the A-100, I don't get it if I happened to get a really bad unit, which I doubt, or people are not as selective as I am, but I doubt that too, haven't even had the need to move to bluray yet, don't feel like I am up there as far as hysterical for the top of the line, or this people are just pushing devices without really reviewing them...