Myka's BitTorrent-friendly home media player now in production

It's been just about ten full months since Myka's BitTorrent box was formally introduced to Earthlings, but it seems like the wheels are finally turning on production way across the way in China. According to a promising update on Myka's official website, "production is in full swing," which means that boxes should start arriving to eager consumers in around four to six weeks. For those unaware, this here box pulls down torrents as you sleep and then plays 'em back nicely on your connected HDTV. Users can also load up additional media on the inbuilt 80GB, 160GB or 500GB hard drive, but first you'll need to hand over $299, $349 or $459 depending on just how capacious you like your media servers.

[Thanks, Julio]

[player1. @ Jan 18th 2009 5:46AM]

Or you can build your own for less than half the price...

[Romesh @ Jan 18th 2009 5:54AM]

I completely agree- and of course, I'm building a computer to do the same as this, except with dual HD tuners as well :P

That being said, this looks like a convenient option for someone who doesn't want a full media computer (maybe already has a PVR), or hasn't got time to build one

[Like_A_Glove @ Jan 18th 2009 6:49AM]

... and twice the ugliness.

[Johannes @ Jan 18th 2009 7:34AM]

Or you can just split it up, use an low-cost low-power consuming passively cooled minipc to download your torrents (and share them on the network) and your general computer/media-player/ps3/xbox to put them on the screen.

Even cheaper and no need for an extra box at the screen.

[RazorD @ Jan 18th 2009 6:58PM]

Why does this thing carry the DVB logo? It's not a certified device.. it has nothing at all with Digital Video Broadcasting, and thats a european thing anyway. That adds weight to the idea its a scam, IMO.

[XIYL @ Jan 19th 2009 7:17PM]

Or you could just buy an original Xbox for $40 and put XBMC on it. I even got a component AV cable for $15 so it outputs in 1080i. Its a damn good solution to this for dirt cheap.

[Oli D @ Jan 18th 2009 6:06AM]

Its the size of a super small form factor machine.

It has the hard drive of a super small factor machine.

It has the price of a super small form factor machine.

But its not. Its an external hard drive with delusions of grandeur.

This is a pretty good idea, i just cant see why you wouldn't go the whole way and stick a full OS on there...

[AJ in the East Bay @ Jan 18th 2009 6:20AM]

I don't care about the BitTorrent part of it. It's all about supporting lots of video/audio codecs for me, as well as a nice GUI, like XBMC. I suppose I could get an Apple TV and hack it, but it's always a firmware update race when it comes to that.

[ph @ Jan 18th 2009 6:22AM]

Thought about a device like this years ago. One difference: it acts as a DVD player and digital TV and automatically rips and shares everything you watch.

[Jash Sayani @ Jan 18th 2009 2:55PM]

Only 1 USB port?? Where's the USB love!!

If Apple puts on 1 USB on the Air, it does not mean you follow everything!!!

[loopyoyo @ Jan 18th 2009 6:23AM]

give me one that'll do rapidshare and im sold!

[chickenator @ Jan 18th 2009 7:07AM]

Rapid what?

[Dave Chappelle @ Jan 19th 2009 6:22AM]

What?

How about you just buy a Rapidshare/Megaupload account?

Torrents and FTP's are different dude, you do know this?

[Jimmy Jones @ Jan 18th 2009 6:57AM]

"but first you'll need to hand over $299, $349 or $459 depending on just how capacious you like your media servers."

- ....but second, I won't be handing over any of the $$ listed above.....and 3rd, I will be keeping them where they've always been......

[bhaal @ Jan 18th 2009 7:14AM]

Ah, intellectual property infringement a go go. If China ever actually pays attention to copyright laws these guys are going to be hammered.

[gonintendo @ Jan 18th 2009 10:26AM]

http://www.engadget.com/tag/kirf/

[bryan_in_dc @ Jan 18th 2009 7:53AM]

popcorn hour, popcorn hour, popcorn hour

[jimmy @ Jan 18th 2009 9:16AM]

ditto!

[Nick Catalano @ Jan 18th 2009 1:21PM]

+1

Although it wouldn't take much to have a better UI than the PCH

[bersuit2k @ Jan 18th 2009 4:00PM]

popcorn hour has the worst interface ever, lags, unintuitive, not elegant.

[Nig B @ Jan 18th 2009 8:06PM]

I wish the PCH forum people, http://www.networkedmediatank.com/, were more commited to making the bit torrent aspect more user friendly and usefull...

[hugoliva @ Jan 18th 2009 9:09PM]

@Nig B
The bittorrent part of my PCH is my favorite feature. You get to choose between transmission or the proprietary client, which by the way, I get to use in all of the private trackers I'm member of. Maybe you are trying to use it from the GUI instead of the web browser app.

[Jonyah @ Jan 18th 2009 11:24PM]

+1 more. There is still nothing that compares to the popcorn hour. And it's half this price. I've had mine for almost a year now, and everything coming out s years behind. Go figure.

[stephenmc @ Jan 18th 2009 7:27AM]

No Matrovski support according to this http://www.myka.tv/techspec.html

Think I'll pass.

[stephenmc @ Jan 18th 2009 7:52AM]

I meant of course Matroska.

[meist3r @ Jan 18th 2009 8:32AM]

Doesn't it say "Linux operating system" I bet someone will hack that thing in the first week and then you can play whatever you want. It's not like the video codecs are a secret. XBMC does all that too through MPlayer. Here I bet it ain't much different.

[Ash Leavenworth @ Jan 18th 2009 3:24PM]

@ meist3r
XBMC does not use mplayer.
It uses the open source FFmpeg codecs and it uses its own built in video player.
mplayer is not involved.

[meist3r @ Jan 20th 2009 5:15PM]

@Ash:
http://xbmc.org/wiki/index.php?title=MPlayer

"The main video-player in XBMC for Xbox is a port of MPlayer, which is a command-line based video-player for Linux."

But you are also (kinda) right:

"MPlayer is however slowly moving towards replacing its custom demuxers/splitters with the ones from FFmpeg's "libavformat" library so that the work of the two projects can be combined."

I meant the XBMC for Xbox since that's the only one I use so far.

[jason @ Jan 18th 2009 7:27AM]

Or you Just get an Apple TV and throw Boxee on it.

[Aaron @ Jan 18th 2009 7:33AM]

Is there an easy way to replace the HDD on an Apple TV? 160GB is way too small.

[jason @ Jan 18th 2009 8:13AM]

Well you can do a couple of things for that. In my case I have a 500 Gb hard drive hooked up to my airport extreme (not sure if this method works on other wireless routers as well), then I just get Boxee to read that shared drive. The other option is hooking the hard drive to your computer and doing the same thing.

[Brendon @ Jan 18th 2009 4:14PM]

agreed, ATV+Boxee+1TB is what i have at my house
it is purely awesome and cost less then $300

[Brendon @ Jan 18th 2009 4:15PM]

For the 2 comments above if you get nitoTV it will allow you to hook up an external HDD to your usb of the apple tv. No need for a shared folder anymore ;)

[adenijiadaralegbe @ Jan 18th 2009 8:01AM]

Wow, all that for our hard earned dollars?

[Marshall @ Jan 18th 2009 9:59AM]

Less money (even when factoring in the purchase of a hard drive), likely less power consumption (saves you more money in electricity), plays everything (including MKV).

Popcorn Hour (and other NMT varients) FTW.

[Melao @ Jan 18th 2009 10:12AM]

I have a Popcorn Hour, it is cheaper and plays more file types.

[northpole @ Jan 18th 2009 10:16AM]

such a short list of codecs?
and no DTS, 1080p; not sure if its hdmi 1.3a.
when u have popcorn hour, hdix, xbmc who will buy these?

[Joshh @ Jan 18th 2009 10:27AM]

i would just get the cheapest one and replace it with my own hard drive.

[Neha @ Jan 18th 2009 11:03AM]

What about File extraction. Does it have some kinda scripting built in for rar files?

[BuGG @ Mar 12th 2009 3:56AM]

Tvix m-6500a is a much better player.

[ZeroCorpse @ Jan 18th 2009 1:14PM]

Um... How is this even legal?

I don't mean to be the wet blanket here, but isn't this the sort of thing that can get you a letter from your ISP complaining that the MPAA wants your head on a spike?

I'm just asking.

[James @ Jan 18th 2009 1:32PM]

Not all torrent movies are strictly illegal, and even if they are, you won't have the MPAA breaking down your door for them. Unlicensed anime, for example, while perhaps you will get different opinions on it, is widely believed to be "okay" and the US companies don't do anything about it. Once it becomes licensed for US release, that's a different story. Foreign films, while many of them are tracked in their host country, because the studios are usually not companies represented by the MPAA, you can also get away with downloading it.

Your ISP might still get pissed at you and reduce / drop your service for using too much bandwidth or CPU/connection resources, but that's entirely dependent on the ISP and usually unrelated to the legality of what you're doing. Generally, searching on forums like DSLReports will give you an idea of what the limits are you can get by with on your bittorrent client without incurring your ISP's wrath. If you're buying this device, you probably already torrent a significant amount on your PC, and know what the limits are, and I hope the device has a way of setting limits.

[Yom @ Jan 18th 2009 1:27PM]

Well, I don't want to spoil anyone's fun here, but I'd hold my money if I were you. The whole thing is fishy - at best - according to TorrentFreak (http://torrentfreak.com/the-myka-bittorrent-box-a-scam-090118/). Scam ?

[tingrin87 @ Jan 18th 2009 4:07PM]

heh, i just read that on torrentfreak, then saw this on the engadget rss

[FILA @ Jan 18th 2009 1:40PM]

can it play from my future home server with movies on it?

[d889 @ Jan 18th 2009 2:34PM]

has anyone ever used the torrent UI in this thing? how do you actually find the links, can you go to piratebay and isohunt and stuff or is it just one search engine?

i think ill stick to my ~4 year old v3 client of bit torrent, lets me download at over 500k/sec and not upload anything :)

[elBravo @ Jan 19th 2009 11:17AM]

Sharing is Caring.

[Scott @ Jan 18th 2009 2:50PM]

after receiving a letter from Cablevision this week on behalf of a company representing Marvel Comics to which someone in our house allegedly downloaded issue 496 of Uncanny X-Men, I have a hard time believing in the legality of anything like this being sold commercially.

For instance seeing this in a nice retail box at best buy, "Perfect for Unlicensed Foriegn Films and most non-US Released Anime" how the F can they even imagine marketing this to non-criminals?

And if you're downloading movies, software or yes, even comics...you are breaking the law. You don't have to be caught first to be a criminal.

and for anyone who wants to flame me, I'll give you this come-back now so I don't have to keep an eye on this thread, "...because your mom likes it that way."

snoogans.

[Jash Sayani @ Jan 18th 2009 2:58PM]

Wow, a BitTorrent downloading machine! What a piracy boomer !!!!

[bangladeshiluv @ Jan 18th 2009 5:27PM]

bittorrent sucks now that all these leechers are on it. doesnt anyone seed 1:1 anymore???