Tell me about Popcorn Hour

[dajakal]

http://www.popcornhour.com

So, from what I can tell, it's a dedicated box that stores and plays any media on it. Internal SATA or external USB connection. It's networked and can show as a NAS device so you can copy media files from other PC's. Right?
I currently use TVserity to serve files to my PS3/HDTV. It's great, but I think it's ineffecient to need my PC and PS3 on to watch media on my TV. Plus PS3 doesn't support all of my media files (MKV, subtitles, etc.).
I'm interested in a dedicated media streamer that's low power, easy to use, and plays tons of files. Does this popcorn hour thing fit the bill? Also, I have a 1 TB internal SATA (NTFS) drive dedicated to my movies. If I got a popcorn hour, would I be able to just install that drive, files and all, over to it?
Thanks for any help!

 

[dmw16]

I was thinking about an Apple TV and this seems like a great alternative.

It supports USB drives so if nothing else you could probably put your current drive into a USB enclosure and pull files off of it.

 

[Rio Rebel]

There are cheaper alternatives. The Asus O!play is on sale at Fry's, if you have one locally (I think it's $69 after a $15 rebate, which is a steal). And people are raving over the WD HDTV Live for just over $100.

I've heard the popcorn hour was the best in class when it first came out, and the most compatible...but it's my impression that these two devices above are in the same league at a much lower cost. Media players have come a LONG way in compatibility lately.

 

[dajakal]

There are cheaper alternatives. The Asus O!play is on sale at Fry's, if you have one locally (I think it's $69 after a $15 rebate, which is a steal). And people are raving over the WD HDTV Live for just over $100.

I've heard the popcorn hour was the best in class when it first came out, and the most compatible...but it's my impression that these two devices above are in the same league at a much lower cost. Media players have come a LONG way in compatibility lately.

Thanks! WD TV Live is getting good reviews, most anecdotal posts favor it over the O!Play. If I could find custom firmware for bittorrent it could be a winner. Generally, are these devices meant to stay on 24/7 (low power consumption, low heat buildup)? I'd like to plug my external USB drive in here and use it as NAS so I can get to it on my network.

 

[RKS]

I've got the WD TV Live along with a 1 TB WD external HDD hooked up to my receiver. It seems to get warm but I have it setup to turn both items off when not in use.
I did seem to have connectivity issues when the item first came out but recent firmware has resolved most issues.
I think Popcorn Hour allows you to send media to any networked computer while the WD TV Live will allow you to get files from any computer.

 

[Rio Rebel]

I'm using the O!play. It's a wonderful little box for playing my movie .iso files. My only complaint is that it could use a better interface so my family could operate it easily.

 

[treyweaver]

I have both a WDTV-Live and a Popcorn Hour A-100.

The A-100 has much better networking capabilities than the WDTV-Live. WDTV-Live has problems working with Win7 network especially if there are more than one computer on your network. The second big problem with the WDTV-Live box is that on mp4 the audio gets out of sync (a lot) with the videos. This audio sync problem was introduced in a firmware release in November and is STILL not fixed.

The WDTV-Live box is DNLA compliant so it works very well with Media Servers including PlayOn (my favorite), the popcorn hour does not work nearly as well. The interface is much faster on the WDTV-Live box. Popcornhour does work well with myiHome media server, but that server is very, very limiting; only local content, no internet content.

So I would recommend the WDTV-Live box if you do the following two things:
1) Make all your content mkv or avi files not mp4 (until they fix the audio sync problems).
2) To resolve the networking problems use a Media Server to get your local content. I use Wild-Media-Server (it does not use much resources on my machine and it works flawlessly with the WDTV-Live box).

BTW: Boot time on the WDTV-Live box is so short you can turn it off when you are not using it, if you are really concerned about power.

 

[Modelworks]

Don't buy anything right now.
In about 3 weeks a whole new group of boxes is coming out with a lot more features.
Some of the big ones:
http://www.boxee.tv/box
http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=productinfo&item_id=20


The main differences are the boxee box is using nvidia for the processor and the rest of them are realtek or Sigma chips. Most of those boxes have identical features and what you are paying extra for is support and updates. Try to stick with a company that has experience with media players.
http://www.iboum.com/sort/media-player-comparison-table.php

 

[MSCoder610]

I currently use TVserity to serve files to my PS3/HDTV. It's great, but I think it's ineffecient to need my PC and PS3 on to watch media on my TV. Plus PS3 doesn't support all of my media files (MKV, subtitles, etc.).

FYI, if you use the software "PS3 Media Server", that definitely supports subtitles and MKVs. The point about not needing your PC [on all the time to serve the media] is a fair point though.

 

[JoeBleed]

anyone using the newer model of the popcornhour?

i've been wondering how well their claimed blu-ray and DVD playing is with the addition of a blu-ray drive . Or if it will only do unprotected media at this point?

 

[de8212]

Can't add much more than what's already been said except I own the WD TV Live and it's great. I have it connected to a 1.5TB WD usb drive and everything works great. I have also streamed files from my PC (via cat5) and it worked well also. I did have the share disappear on me twice but I would say it was 90% perfect.

I would also like a way to use it as a torrent box so I could download stuff straight to it rather than to my pc and then copy over the network. I thing there is an after market firmware that might do it but it didn't look as straightforward as I would like.

 

[dajakal]

FYI, if you use the software "PS3 Media Server", that definitely supports subtitles and MKVs. The point about not needing your PC [on all the time to serve the media] is a fair point though.

Yes it does, but only if your computer is good enough to handle transcoding them, which mine is not. Thanks for the tip though!

As for the other responses, I had no idea of the abundance of set top boxes, and each one looks better than the rest! I was liking the WD TV for network sharing and media compatability, and I did see some reports of custom firmware to enable bittorrenting. But the hiccups with MKV and other things make me uneasy.
My ideal box (and probably everyone else's...) would play every imaginable media format, use external USB drives, have a remote admin bittorrent client I can manage from my network, and be low power and quiet. Everything else is really extras. I can hold off now on buying one and see what the next month or so brings. If the boxee box and popbox are priced competetively, I'll probably be narrowing it between those two. But I'm seeing the WD TV Live for $120, and I'd really consider that about as much as I want to spend, give or take $10. Hopefully the price announcements will come soon.

 

[de8212]

I haven't had any issues with .mkv's but I've only played 10 or 15. I've also ripped 2 dvd's to .iso with no issues.

And there is someone in the FS section selling a WD TV Live for ~100, I think. You might could even make an offer for a little less. I've seen it somewhere recently for either 89 or 99 (amazon??). I can't blame you for holding out but I have only had mine about a month and wonder why I didn't get one sooner.

 

[Slick5150]

Having used just about every single one of the devices in this thread (and then some..), I can make a few recommendations.

For compatibility, nothing tops the Syabas based players right now (Popcorn Hour, etc..). They'll play just about anything you can throw at them, including Blu-Ray rips, and will even bitstream HD-audio tracks (DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD). The downside? The UI of these players SUCKS, and playing MP3s/music is horribly impemented. The best bargain in the category, in my opinion, is the eGreat M34A.

For a better/easier user experience, the WD TV Live is a good option. Is has some limitations, can't stream HD audio for example, but generally does a good job. It also has a bunch of hacks out there that give it some extra features. In my opinion, it definitely outclasses the Asus Oplay, for right around the same price point (maybe a little more, haven't kept up on the prices as much lately.)

You could also go the route of getting a tiny PC like the Acer AspireRevo and putting XBMC or Boxee on there, both of which are outstanding pieces of software. You'll still lack the ability to bitstream HD audio though, if that's important to you.

And as someone else mentioned, there are new players coming soon. Boxee has their own Boxee Box coming (being built by D-Link). The specs are there, but nobody seems to know for sure the features it is or is not going to have (Netflix, HD audio, etc..). Popcorn Hour is also releasing their Popbox player soon, which supposedly will carry over the features of the Popcorn Hour/Syabas players, add some including Netflix, but package it with a far improved UI. Very little has been seen of it thus far though.

 

[dmw16]

I am really glad this thread came up. I was thinking of getting a device like this for my home theater.

I looked at three different Popcorn Hour devices. The C-200 was more than I really wanted to spend, but the A-200 looked a little on the cheap side. I am actually considering trying to find a used A-100.

But after doing even more research I agree with a PP to wait for the Boxee based devices coming out in the next few weeks.

I'm looking forward to seeing more info in this thread.

I should also note, AVS Forum has a whole section dedicated to these types of devices. It's worth checking out.

 

[ericlp]

I have egreat. Works good... I stream all my stuff to it, yeah I leave my computer on all the time. I use it every day so why not... plus I use magic jack as well as my primary land line.

So anyway... I don't own an WD device and I am sure they have corrected a lot of problems with firmware updates...

But... But... a few reasons I like popcorn hour...

1) open source --- If any problems come up it's gets fixed quick.
2) It's been around for a long time and has a lot of followers.
3) It's played ever HD movie that I have D/Loaded. I d/l about 8 gig's a day average.

That's why I have 4 TB of hard drive space. And I don't need a cable or sat subscription. I can download all the movies off national geo, science Chanel / Discovery and PBS in HD. Not to mention movies in HD and run them on my projector... I'm thinking of getting another egreat box for the bed room tv.

Good luck with whatever you get...

 

[dmw16]

I actually pulled the trigger on an AppleTV today and will be installing Boxee on it. I'll report more details once I get it setup, but I figured I'd mention it as another option.

 

[Slick5150]

AppleTV is ok as an "easy" step to get Boxee up and running, but you really can't play much of any HD content on it as it's simply too slow.