Well I have been working with my new toy for a couple weeks now. It is very useful.
Welcome To Popcorn Hour
It is the C-200 model, $299, $311 with IR remote.
What I like about it best is that I can rip a BD to an ISO using anydvd then watch it on the popcornhour machine with full menu support. That is right, it plays it just like a real BD (you can put a BD drive in the machine too and play them that way too). The functions are not quite as fast as the PS3. A BD takes anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds to load depending on the BD.
To do network BD playing you pretty much have to use hardwired ethernet, 50mbit/sec peaks just is not friendly with wifi. I tried the wifi option, and I would not buy it again ($50 option). Too often using the wifi there would be stops and studdering. It does not really buffer ahead. It would probably work for DVD playback though.
I did get the IR remote option for $12, needed for an universal remote control. You plug the remote dongle into a port on the unit and it has a cable so you can receive outside the cabinet. It also comes with an IR remote (UHF also comes standard with the unit).
The unit takes 10 days to come in. It ships direct from mainland China. It comes in a box with an outer shipping wrapper. Unfortunately it means you have to sign for it since the post office require signature on international shipments. They do send you a notice when it ships (they ship once a week). They include an DHL tracking number which works great until it gets turned over to the USPS for final delivery (you can see it go through China, to Hong Kong, to the US on DHL).
You have to add your own hard drive. It does not need a big one, unless you want to store content on it. You can use either 2.5" or 3.5". If you use 3.5" you cannot put in a BD drive. I used an old 2.5" notebook drive I had lying around. It needs the space for BD playback. You can also add a BD drive if you want to play BDs directly on the unit. As an option you can use an USB memory stick, they recommend a 4GB one for software and BDLive! support.
You can copy media files to the internal drive if you want to store/playback from the unit directly. I use a NAS raid for my media. You can give it login names and passwords for your windows machines or NAS so it can use the shared folders.
The box has amazing functionality. It can play every media file I have tried. It can even download Usenet and bit torrents. Spec sheet (Welcome To Popcorn Hour) Look at the vast array of video and audio handling. It also passes through the lossless BD formats over HDMI. Again, just like a BD player.
BD support is in both ISO and directory format. Both play like you put the BD rom into the BD drive and hit play. I have been busy ripping my BDs with anydvd and just putting an .ISO file on my NAS for each BD. I can just navigate on the popcornhour to the movie I want and hit play. It works great that anydvd has removed all the restrictions and one can just skip past all the FBI warnings.
My current project of course is to transfer all my BDs to my NAS. It is time consuming. I am putting in all the new BDs I buy right away, and have been slowly working on the rest of my collection. It is much easier to be in the dark to select the BD I want to watch from the Popcorn Hour menu than to change out BDs. I am considering ordering another BD drive for my other computer to speed up the transfer process. Today I got in 5 movies and 3 seasons of a show. A lot of discs to transfer.
I included a couple pictures. One is of the inside. Essentially it is a system on a chip. There are no fans inside, if you use a flash drive it will remain silent. I recommend a 2.5 over 3.5 for noise reasons. The blurry one is the unit with the remotes. Across the top is the box of wifi antennas, the IR dongle/remote and the UHF remote. Note the IR one is silver the UHF one black.
The unit also has an LCD display on the front. It is backlit blue. It tells you what is going on. You can turn it off if you wish.
Welcome To Popcorn Hour
It is the C-200 model, $299, $311 with IR remote.
What I like about it best is that I can rip a BD to an ISO using anydvd then watch it on the popcornhour machine with full menu support. That is right, it plays it just like a real BD (you can put a BD drive in the machine too and play them that way too). The functions are not quite as fast as the PS3. A BD takes anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds to load depending on the BD.
To do network BD playing you pretty much have to use hardwired ethernet, 50mbit/sec peaks just is not friendly with wifi. I tried the wifi option, and I would not buy it again ($50 option). Too often using the wifi there would be stops and studdering. It does not really buffer ahead. It would probably work for DVD playback though.
I did get the IR remote option for $12, needed for an universal remote control. You plug the remote dongle into a port on the unit and it has a cable so you can receive outside the cabinet. It also comes with an IR remote (UHF also comes standard with the unit).
The unit takes 10 days to come in. It ships direct from mainland China. It comes in a box with an outer shipping wrapper. Unfortunately it means you have to sign for it since the post office require signature on international shipments. They do send you a notice when it ships (they ship once a week). They include an DHL tracking number which works great until it gets turned over to the USPS for final delivery (you can see it go through China, to Hong Kong, to the US on DHL).
You have to add your own hard drive. It does not need a big one, unless you want to store content on it. You can use either 2.5" or 3.5". If you use 3.5" you cannot put in a BD drive. I used an old 2.5" notebook drive I had lying around. It needs the space for BD playback. You can also add a BD drive if you want to play BDs directly on the unit. As an option you can use an USB memory stick, they recommend a 4GB one for software and BDLive! support.
You can copy media files to the internal drive if you want to store/playback from the unit directly. I use a NAS raid for my media. You can give it login names and passwords for your windows machines or NAS so it can use the shared folders.
The box has amazing functionality. It can play every media file I have tried. It can even download Usenet and bit torrents. Spec sheet (Welcome To Popcorn Hour) Look at the vast array of video and audio handling. It also passes through the lossless BD formats over HDMI. Again, just like a BD player.
BD support is in both ISO and directory format. Both play like you put the BD rom into the BD drive and hit play. I have been busy ripping my BDs with anydvd and just putting an .ISO file on my NAS for each BD. I can just navigate on the popcornhour to the movie I want and hit play. It works great that anydvd has removed all the restrictions and one can just skip past all the FBI warnings.
My current project of course is to transfer all my BDs to my NAS. It is time consuming. I am putting in all the new BDs I buy right away, and have been slowly working on the rest of my collection. It is much easier to be in the dark to select the BD I want to watch from the Popcorn Hour menu than to change out BDs. I am considering ordering another BD drive for my other computer to speed up the transfer process. Today I got in 5 movies and 3 seasons of a show. A lot of discs to transfer.
I included a couple pictures. One is of the inside. Essentially it is a system on a chip. There are no fans inside, if you use a flash drive it will remain silent. I recommend a 2.5 over 3.5 for noise reasons. The blurry one is the unit with the remotes. Across the top is the box of wifi antennas, the IR dongle/remote and the UHF remote. Note the IR one is silver the UHF one black.
The unit also has an LCD display on the front. It is backlit blue. It tells you what is going on. You can turn it off if you wish.
transferring Movies from 1 drive to another right now I got from my Hauppauge box... making a 1.5 TB TV drive and a 1.5 Movie drive (have a 1 TB full of just Movies also)