It looks like Popcorn Hour's
C-200 media streamer is making its way into end-users' hands, so prepare yourself for a flurry of reviews. Our friend Brent over at GeekTonic should be jumping into the fray soon, and has kicked things off with a preview. Yeah, the C-200 is bigger than its sibling
A-100, but it brings so much to the table that we'd say Popcorn Hour has packed in just as much -- if not more -- goodness per cubic inch. With space available for a hard and/or Blu-ray drive, wired and wireless networking, and USB ports to round out the input connectivity, the C-200 then adds a smorgasbord of codec support just to make sure your bits will survive the translation back into entertainment. With the "it plays anything" kind of capability the C-200 is promising, we've got a feeling that a positive review or two might be the only thing standing between us and a $300 dent in our credit cards.
[Via
ZatzNotFunny]
posted Sep 19th 2009 2:47AM
This popcorn machine would be complete with a butter flavored liquid pump
Funny...
I have been an owner of the current popcorn hour for almost a year now and have yet to see something compare to its functionality for the price. I don't really have the need for a cd/dvd/bluray drive or even a hard drive in the device, but I could see the need for some. But the biggest thing I think most people have complained about before is the interface. I hope they made it a little more up to date and nicer to look at. That's one thing I think others players have managed to do.
Oh and a RF remote is nice, but I hope you can still use a IR remote like my logitech harmony remote to control it. Would suck to have to use their remote if the Harmony could work just as well even if its IR.
exactly...My A-100 already has ' "it plays anything" kind of capability', just the UI is geeky.
'hard and/or Blu-ray drive, wired and wireless networking, and USB ports' ... Once you go NAS, you don't go back ;)
I'm with you JSB. Got the first model when it was still in pre-orders. I tried a drive in it, but it just wasn't the same. I now keep everything on the network and stream. A NAS that support upnp is all you need. Get one that you can add a few drives to and it's all good. I'm going to pick one of these up though for the kids tv since it can decode dts now and I don't have a dts receiver on their tv, yet.
For the cost of a few minutes of your time and a download, you could be running YAMJ (yet another movie jukebox) and have a great looking interface on the A110, and I think on the A100
http://omertron.com/pch/YAMJ_Latest
With a bit more ambition (not much more) you can be running a combination of NMTserver and YAMJ
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ithiel/nmt/index.html
Don't be fooled by the default skin on the NMT site, you can run almost any YAMJ skin ( http://omertron.com/pch/taxonomy/term/92 )
Overpriced, but good. 7/10.
so you actually have one and can give it that kind of a rating, or did you just pull the 7 out of your ass after you read the article?
Leave Ebert alone, he's been severely ill.
EI8HT -
No I don't own one. It is a good device because it plays a lot of media types. It loses points for the less than stellar interface, lack of Blu-ray (add-on), and no hard drive. It's still a good decice, but not $300 good, im my opinion.
Rate it however you want.
It's got a good beat and I can dance to it. I'll give it an 83.
"Our friend Brent over at GeekTonic" I mis-read it, didn't see the R in Brent.
wot. wait, WOOT!
Nice machine, but I still think that the future for digital media players, is without a physical disc, so the option of having a blu-ray drive is worth nill to me. Plus the lcd display one this unit have gotten very bad reviews, so dont take that as a plus either. but hands up to Popcorn for driving this category to its maturity, but watch out for Seagate and Western Digital's cheap and useful players.
As far as digital media streaming, I say have fun waiting. Physical media is not going anywhere anytime soon, I just don't see the quality difference gap closing in the near future.
My PCH A-110 streams from my network (Well it has the option, I actually have 3TB's directly in/on the device) and has many internet sources available for video and audio. So, if you can stream HD from the network, you could also do it from the internet, assuming your connection can do it and you have the source from which to stream.
I thought this machine had a speaker that blasted out "Popcorn", then you would walk up under a nozzle and a chute and let the popcorn and butter lather themselves on you.
Brilliant - A screen!
One box for all - BluRay (with add-on), Media streaming, and Squeezeboxing!
Also, interface shown on PCH site looks really rather slinky.
A whole fleet of videos of the UI etc for anyone interested:
http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=23731
I have one - it arrived here in Ireland last week. It has replaced my Mac Mini for media streaming - the poor baby was squaling like a pig after a few episodes of The Wire by the end.
It's great: RF remote, connects flawlessly to the home network, HDMI out, SPDIF optical - well, you'vre read the spec sheet. It's managed to play everything I've thrown at it. I've streamed HD video to it without any problems. AND IT'S SILENT! Not a whisper from it, which is why I bought it.
I have had a few issues with it though:
- If I "power off" with the remote control it goes into standby mode (like any other appliance) but when I come back to use it again it won't power back on - I need to physically flick the power back on and off with the switch at the back.
- Setting it at 1080p causes the image signal to keep crashing. Every couple of minutes the image (keeps playing) but flickers off from the TV and comes back on. I have a 1080p TV before anyone asks. Setting it to 1080i fixed the problem immediately.
- There is judder with the playback of not all, but quite a few avi's. If a camera is panning across a scene over a few seconds, you'll notice it drop a frame at around two second intervals. In most other scenes you don't spot it as easily but it's there - in a lot of my vids, even recent ones. It's not a huge problem (I got used to it) but it's annoying that it's not perfect.
Aside from these issues (which I'm guessing could be fixed with an update) I'm happy with it, and very happy with the price.
RF
I have one too. Ditto. No image signal issues but some nic card issues. Replaced my 4 year old HTPC. This thing is silent and runs cool even with a 3.5" 1 TB drive in it.
We're still running beta firmware. I too expect the first release to address some of these issues AND expand functionality.
8.5/10
I have as well .. its just buggy because the Gigabit is a little messed off .. they will fix it quickly .. Werner is good at getting new firmware out quickly
Im not to worried yet
for anyone that already owns one (mine is coming this week!), ensure you have the latest Beta firmware (theres no formal firmware released yet).
A big FYI with this product ... as of right now this is not your normal consumer product. It is for people that are more into tinkering. The engineers have already admitted that this is an early release, allowing the community to get their hands on it before the firmware is 100% done. There are still plans for a flash based interface and possibly Netflix and other paid services. They also make it like a barebones PC, allowing the user to add onto; such as adding up to two hard drives, and a blue ray drive.
Not strictly true, since the thing is for sale on the website to the general public.
What has really happened is the initial development has slipped past the release date, but they still decided to ship the items to the public.
Good news is, its just down to completing the firmware.
Another point, if anyone isnt aware, the C200 will not work too well on a gigabit network at the moment, it WILL stutter and freeze.
They're waiting on a fix, but I dont think it'll be too soon.
If I'm not mistaken you can actually have a 2.5" HDD and a Blu-Ray drive installed at the same time, the HDD under the BD. I hope so, since I ordered the C-200, a Lite-On Blu-Ray drive and a 2.5" HDD. I don't really need the HDD since I have a QNAP NAS with 4TB, but playing Blu-Ray requires a couple of gigs of HDD (or a flash drive).
I'm getting mine in 10 days. I was slow some people here in Denmark has had theirs in a month now.
you can .. that iks my exact set up 320 GB harddrive under the BD rom
I have the new C-200. It is a great piece of equipment. As mentioned it has some bugs that need to be ironed out, Although as of now it is working great for my needs.
Once new firmware starts coming along this unit will shine.
At the moment it is definitely an enthusiast piece. Do not expect a one button push media player.
When you realize what this unit can do.... The C-200 has no competition at any price.
Am I the only one who thinks they should partner with Boxee and create the perfect device. All the functionality plus a good looking UI and the internet apps Boxee has. I'm sure there is some reason why the haven't or can't but it seems like such a good match to me.
> For the cost of a few minutes of your time and a download, you could be
> running YAMJ (yet another movie jukebox) and have a great looking
> interface on the A110, and I think on the A100
>
> http://omertron.com/pch/YAMJ_Latest
Still seems not quite sophisticated enough.
Is there anything in terms of video jukebox software that is able to
efficiently manage large volume jukeboxes with lots of titles and
lots of collections. Some things of interest would be random play
lists, player bookmark support, management of collections including
tracking things like the current/next watched title/episode. Per user
preferences.
I have a HDX-900 (same as a A-100, different vendor)
Look at running swisscenter www.swisscenter.co.uk on a PC/NAS. Just load all the media onto the drive and it will catalogue, download covers, create playlists, etc automatically. I've been using it for a few years since I bought my first media streamer.
Two Questions:
1. One of my biggest disappointments with my WD Media Player is its inability to playback a functioning disc menu. Can Popcorn do that?
2. Will Popcorn playback a decoded HD-DVD source?
Thanks
I rip mine, and package them as ISOs. Full menu support, just like the dvd (I have the original A100 PCH).
I own a A-110 and while it has alot of cool functionality, the UI has alot to be desired. The fairly frequent crashes also are a bummer, but all in all, it is a decent device. The remote functionality is great, and is what put it in the "buy" category over a more expensive media pc, for me.
Retrospectively though, I wish I had just burned a little more dough on a decent self-built media pc, as it would be less buggy and ultimately much more versatile and dependable.
Seriously, the navigation of media becomes a nuisance when you have a large library. And the semi daily crashes are just annoying.
Shoot, looks like the BD drive I already own has compatibility issues with this box. Guess I need to wait for one of the bigger companies to get their act together when it comes to MKV support...