$299



http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=productinfo&item_id=12

anyone have one yet? i was on the fence about the original popcorn hour unit, but i just saw this on HD Nation and i'm definitely sold...

10/1/2009 1:21:56 PM

there's only been 3 batches sent out so far with a bunch of delays on all batches - i'd be surprised if anyone has one

el nacho and myself i think are both going to get one later though

10/1/2009 1:31:18 PM

that is awesome. The original one was just meh but this is pretty badass.

10/1/2009 1:42:01 PM

^

Other than a faster CPU and Blu ray drive support, what else is so different to go from "meh" to "awesome"?

Everything else seems to be pretty much the same.

10/1/2009 1:51:11 PM

the cpu/memory upgrades are pretty big imho - with my a110 i can't download from usenet via ssl faster than ~650k/s - without ssl it gets up to 1mb/s - on my laptop it stays right around 1600k/s

if i want to download and watch 1080p video - in some really fast scenes it sometimes will lag

10/1/2009 1:56:57 PM

cool, that makes sense. I only use mine to stream off of a NAS, so haven't used any of the downloading features, and have not yet acquired any 1080p content, but that'll change soon since i finally got a new HDTV.

I really wish it could stream netflix natively (without having to use a separate machine to be man-in-the-middle).



[Edited on October 1, 2009 at 2:15 PM. Reason : asdf]

10/1/2009 2:14:10 PM

I've never had any problems with my a-110 even with 1080p stuff, but unlike OmarBadu, I don't try to do anything fancy with it. I'm still waiting for Engadget's extensive review to see when I get a c-200, but for right now, I don't see it as a must buy.


[Edited on October 1, 2009 at 2:33 PM. Reason : btw, there is absolutely nothing "meh" about the original one and anyone that thinks so is an idiot.]

10/1/2009 2:31:14 PM

the thing about opinions is we're each entitled to one. For example...I think you're an idiot...but you may not hold the same opinion.

My xbox360 does everything I would use it for and the Apple TV has everything else covered. So 'meh' still stands.

[Edited on October 1, 2009 at 2:38 PM. Reason : .]

10/1/2009 2:37:09 PM

hmm

kinda wish i had gotten this instead of throwing some money onto a 360

10/1/2009 2:48:58 PM

^i mean if you bought a xbox360 solely for the purpose of streaming digital media and not as a gaming platform well then you have other problems.

10/1/2009 2:50:44 PM

Wait?! This downloads from usenet? I'm in for one!

10/1/2009 3:04:35 PM

I bought a 360 for media center purposes, but then realized it was a huge piece of shit and sold it for 3x what I paid. I now use my ps3 for mostly media center purposes and it does the job pretty well

10/1/2009 3:25:45 PM

i've been using a 360 to stream from my media server for a long time too. but it's awfully loud. i'd like to sell it and buy a small, quiet, low power box to put win7 MC on. only problem is, win7 can't act as an extender to win7. so i lose out on live tv and stuff.

[Edited on October 1, 2009 at 3:41 PM. Reason : i used to use it for gaming, but i rarely ever play anymore]

10/1/2009 3:40:38 PM

My dad ordered one of these a while back. It finally got here today and he's not gonna hook it up until he gets his new TV this weekend so I managed to bring it back to my house to test out for a bit.

First impressions are that it's faster...but only marginally. The RF remote sucks. My dad ordered the IR kit so he can use it with his Harmony. I haven't tested that out yet, but hopefully it's better. The responsiveness of the RF remote basically negates any speed increase you see in the UI. After spending an hour or so, with it I'm content to sit on my A-110 for a while longer. I'm sure I will eventually get one and retire the A-110 to the bedroom, but I'm really not in any hurry at all now. The A-110 does everything I need it to do for now.

One other thing...The C-200 is HUGE compared to the A series. I knew it was larger, but it's ridiculous. Here's a shot I took for comparison.



The LCD screen on this thing is beyond useless. I'm sitting 5 feet away from it right now and I can't see it for shit. There might be a color or contrast setting I haven't found yet, but if not, they shouldn't have even bothered, IMO.

Anybody have any specific questions they want answered about it?

11/25/2009 9:48:15 PM

Looks like the new WD TV Live does everything the popcorn hour does (except for having an internal HDD) and more. Given the fact that it's more mainstream, i like it's chances of having netflix and hulu support. Pandora is already there.

And it's half the price.

Anyone have one yet?

The reviews on Amazon seem pretty good. I like my popcorn hour, but if i was buying something today, i don't know if i'd still buy a popcorn hour, seems like the competition has finally caught up.

11/26/2009 2:28:14 PM

I grabbed one of the WDTV Lives the day they came out and I LOVE it. I am comparing it to my popcorn hour A-100 and it is as good or better on almost every count. my opinions:

- plays everything that my popcorn hour plays as far as video goes. now I am only playing .mkv/divx/xvid etc and none of that is crazy weird anime shit that always seems to give people probs. 1080p is no problem at all.

- the UI is about a trillion times better than the popcorn hour. it is super fast, has cover art, and is just all around better.

- youtube support is much nicer than the PH. plus Pandora support if you like that.

- This thing is amazingly portable. I have a WD My Passport connected to it (which shows up on my network). I just download things to that drive and can take it with me. In fact, I brought it to my parents house for Thanksgiving and it works great. It's much smaller than that PH (which is pretty small itself.)

- Works very well with PlayOn if you so desire.

Some quirks:
- Cover art is currently flaky via network sources. Hoping it will get fixed in a f/w update.
- while divx/xvid/youtube and audio files work fine over the wireless-n adapter I put on it, you really need to hardwire or play from a connected drive to run the larger mkv rips.

I am super pleased. Seriously considering replacing the Popcorn hour with another one of these in my main setup.

If you have any specific questions, let me know and I will be glad to help.

(also, there is a really robust hacking community set up around this player with lots of neat custom firmware tricks.)

[Edited on November 26, 2009 at 7:06 PM. Reason : Playon]

11/26/2009 7:05:36 PM

does the WD box decode FLAC?

11/27/2009 11:44:21 AM

the specs say it will for audio

Quote :

" * Audio - MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA * Photo - JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG * Video - MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264),MTS, TP, TS Playlist PLS, M3U, WPL Subtitle -SRT (UTF-8), SMI, SUB, ASS, SSA "

11/27/2009 11:56:54 AM

not to hijack too much, but i bought a wd tv live and decided on a ps3 before opening it: message_topic.aspx?topic=582363

11/30/2009 1:09:39 PM

dusted the PCH off today. ethernet port was broken but i fixed it with a dental pick. updated the firmware and we are good to go. I cant believe the only way to watch hulu or netflix is playon. does anyone use it (playon)?

oh and the 1tb hd in my pch appears to not work. i hadnt turned this thing on in over 6 months.

12/1/2009 7:31:38 PM

wow that sucks youve had such a bad experience. My A110 is still going like a champ for over a year. I have a WD green 750 gig drive in it, seems to work great.

12/1/2009 7:49:47 PM

^^no but if you have any intention of ever buying it, use code HOLIDAY before tonight and get it for 19.99

12/1/2009 8:45:18 PM

Tversity pro supports hulu and is free.

12/1/2009 10:35:18 PM

technically it's not free, but whatever.

12/1/2009 11:03:15 PM

my A-100 has been going strong for over 2 years and it is working like a charm. I have never had a single problem with it.

12/1/2009 11:21:42 PM

yeah, my a-110's been up and running since september of '08. I like it, but the UI leaves much to be desired, as well as lack of hulu, netflix, pandora, etc. support. I stream movies off of my NAS, and it works like a champ.

It'll be up for sale later this week if anyone's interested.

12/1/2009 11:29:38 PM

^^^yeah it's "free"

Quote :

"There is no activation of any kind required, and there are no license keys. Simply enter your email address below to download the software. You can try it as long as you need to make a decision (within reason) and if you decide to keep using it please pay for the license."

I use the nonpro version because my desktop can't handle the pro version (not dual core) and it "just works". I love it once I can use the pro version it will get my cash.

[Edited on December 1, 2009 at 11:34 PM. Reason : ^]

12/1/2009 11:33:57 PM

The UI of the popcorn hour is really its Achilles heel. While it is a functional UI, it is hideous. You can use some jukebox software to try and make it better, but those aren't all that great either and don't play nice with macs. I was coming from XBMC at the time that I got my A-100, so it was a massive shock.

The UI is one of the main reasons I like the WDTV Live. Not that its UI is up to XBMC standards, but it is a lot better than most everything else.

12/2/2009 12:42:57 PM

I can read the content on the drive with an ubuntu live cd. FSCK threw a fit scanning the partition. It looks like I can save my data and reformat the drive and try again.

I dont mind the PCH UI at all. The remote however....I feel like I am playing laser tag. The window of oppurtunity is so small.

12/2/2009 1:50:48 PM

haha yeah no kidding, at least the logitech harmony supports the PCH, makes life much easier.

12/2/2009 2:18:56 PM

So I ended up asking for one of those WD TV Lives for Christmas. It's pretty much so better in almost every single way than a popcorn hour.

My dad's C-200 has been giving him nothing but trouble since he got it (I'm thinking part of the blame is his shitty router's fault, but still) but after seeing the WD in action he's gonna put the PCH on craigslist and replace it ASAP.

I guess if you really want your media player to download newgroups or torrents, or if you really want one with a shitty LCD screen you can't read and a blu-ray drive, then the PCH is the way to go. Otherwise, those little WDs are pretty nifty.

12/25/2009 11:27:56 PM

The playback support on the WDTV Live is worse than the Popcorn Hour. So if you have WMA Pro audio (generally found with WMV HD) or certain Dolby formats, you're going to want to stick with the PCH.

12/25/2009 11:39:24 PM

Everybody knows the MKV container is far superior anyways.

12/26/2009 1:11:12 AM

A) It's not.
B) The WDTV also doesn't decode DTS tracks (it can only passthrough) nor 5.1 AAC tracks (again, only passthrough) -- both of which are audio tracks you could find stuffed in an MKV

Basically, if you watch a bunch of standard def TV rips, the WDTV is every bit as good as the PCH. It just doesn't have nearly the "catch-all" ability of a PCH when you start moving into the high def rips people make.

12/26/2009 1:27:38 AM

I thought you, of all people, could have picked up the obvious troll attempt there. I guess not. I just know you're one of the few people on here that gets your panties all twisted at even a mention of MKVs.

12/26/2009 1:34:45 AM

I am going to disagree with you. I have been using a popcorn hour since the 2nd batch of A-100s they ever shipped and the WDTV is as good or better.

The one area where you can probably call the popcorn better for sure is WMV-HD/WMA files. But unless you spent a ton of time downloading/converting files to play on a 360 (which I think you said you did), this is likely irrelevant to you. Most people are using x264 files in .mkv container for HD rips these days. (at least if you are using usenet for your source.)

As for the audio passthrough issue, it's true, but how many people are going to be using one of these without a receiver? And if you are using it without a receiver you can just switch it to stereo audio output and run through your TV speakers. (I have done this at my parents house for the last couple of days with DTS/AAC files.)

Popcorn Hour is a good box if you are serious about downloading and playing every last file on the planet, but for 95% of the people that just want to watch content they downloaded/converted, the WDTV Live is the better choice. (imho)

12/26/2009 1:40:50 AM

Quote :

"I thought you, of all people, could have picked up the obvious troll attempt there. I guess not. I just know you're one of the few people on here that gets your panties all twisted at even a mention of MKVs."

I did. You're not as clever as you think you are, ace.

Quote :

"Most people are using x264 files in .mkv container for HD rips these days."

x264, much like VC1, is fine. There's no issue with the device's video capabilities. Everything plays both.

Quote :

"As for the audio passthrough issue, it's true, but how many people are going to be using one of these without a receiver? And if you are using it without a receiver you can just switch it to stereo audio output and run through your TV speakers. (I have done this at my parents house for the last couple of days with DTS/AAC files.)"

I have my WDTV only hooked up to my HDTV in my room, so I definitely fall into the "using it without a receiver category". Considering the WDTV also doesn't downmix DTS/AAC files, I'm going to have to ask if there are actually just multiple soundtracks in your files, because right now you're claiming that you're doing something the product is incapable of. Your TV may be doing the downmixing, but the WDTV isn't.

I mean, I like my WDTV but it's not without it's issues and those issues make it inferior to a PCH.

[Edited on December 26, 2009 at 2:12 AM. Reason : .]

12/26/2009 2:07:16 AM

^I know precisely how clever I am, thanks.

I've noticed that the UI on the PCH is far more responsive when I've got it outputting over S-Video to an old tube TV. That really speaks a lot to how unbelievably shitty the CPU is on these things.

12/26/2009 2:17:57 AM

Quote :

"Considering the WDTV also doesn't downmix DTS/AAC files, I'm going to have to ask if there are actually just multiple soundtracks in your files, because right now you're claiming that you're doing something the product is incapable of. Your TV may be doing the downmixing, but the WDTV isn't."

he said wdtv live which does support dts downmixing, (not too sure about aac though but that shouldn't even matter). you have the 1st gen wdtv which probably won't ever see the fw upgrade with dts downmixing.

Quote :

"..nor 5.1 AAC tracks (again, only passthrough) -- both of which are audio tracks you could find stuffed in an MKV"

you would only find 5.1 aac in a mkv if it were made by an idiot. 5.1 aac (in mp4 of course) is only good for apple tv, and maybe ps3 although it is hit-or-miss at times. Every competent encoder knows this.

and to add to the wdtv live vs pch discussion.. the wdtv live still struggles with some 1080p encodes or untouched bd rips. make it through inglorious basterds (untouched or non-shitgroup encode) on the wdtv live without any kind of playback snag and you can call yourself the owner of a freak superhero wdtv live.

12/26/2009 4:10:10 AM

does anyone want a license for playon.tv?

impulse buy and they wont refund me, tradsies?

12/26/2009 7:25:22 AM

Quote :

"he said wdtv live which does support dts downmixing, (not too sure about aac though but that shouldn't even matter). you have the 1st gen wdtv which probably won't ever see the fw upgrade with dts downmixing."

After reading into it further, I stand corrected. I do have a WDTV Live (though it's not with me at the moment) so I couldn't test it myself. My mistake.

12/26/2009 11:44:37 AM

looking into getting something like this..

how's everyone liking the WD TV live? I want something that can play .mkv files without me having to convert them. Streaming via the xbox360 is turning into a PITA..it's stupid picky about formats.

hmmm..some more reading is showing the WD TV is one of the few that will play .mkv files..BUT it has a problem with the audio with some audio types and will only send it out the optical out.. i have nothing that could use an optical audio signal so that would suck

any updates on this or work arounds?

[Edited on December 31, 2009 at 11:41 AM. Reason : asdf]

12/31/2009 11:26:37 AM

Maybe I should start a new topic for this, but I thought I would post here to see if these devices can do it.

I have copied a lot of my DVDs into .ISO images onto my main file server here at the house. I would like to have some type of library software that can let me browse through them and play them on a TV.

Can any of these devices do that, or have I made a mistake storing the backups as .ISO?

12/31/2009 11:42:10 AM

popcorn hour can do that.

[Edited on December 31, 2009 at 11:54 AM. Reason : or supposedly it can. google popcorn hour .iso]

12/31/2009 11:53:31 AM

why an ISO and not just copying the VOB?

12/31/2009 2:52:16 PM

i dunno why he'd do it that way

bbbut whatever. i'm looking more and more at the wd tv live..looks pretty damn sweet for the size/price.

12/31/2009 3:18:50 PM

Yes, the PCH (even the A series) will do ISO playback of a DVD image, however it does have to be on a local drive and not streamed across a network. You get the menus and everything, just like you would if you inserted a physical disc into a DVD player. It will also treat an VIDEO_TS folder it finds the same as an ISO (again, only on local drives though). I'm pretty sure the C-200 will even do Blu-Ray ISO playback. I never bothered downloading a 50GB file to find out though.

I got dvd playback to work on the WD Live by sharing the DVD drive on the network and then watching the raw VOB files. I assume you could probably mount an ISO image as a virtual disk, and then share that "drive" and get the same effect. It wouldn't be as nice as the ISO playback on the PCH though.

12/31/2009 3:45:25 PM

The reason I initially chose ISO was because if i wanted to re-burn the exact discs, I could. So far, ive just been doing this to back up my DVDs that I loan out, take on trips, etc...

But it occurred to me that there has gotta be a way to watch them on the TV.

Looks like popcorn hour can open ISO files and navigate IFO.

12/31/2009 3:47:03 PM

Quote :

"Yes, the PCH (even the A series) will do ISO playback of a DVD image, however it does have to be on a local drive and not streamed across a network."

I dont think this is true. I have loaded an ISO dvd over the network before.

12/31/2009 4:32:28 PM

I dunno. Maybe they fixed that in an update or something. Admittedly that's not something I do often, but I do know the one or two times I tried it, I had to end up copying it to the HDD. It probably also depends on how you're doing the sharing. I primarily use the MyiHome stuff they recommend on the website.

12/31/2009 4:44:58 PM