Popcorn Hour C-200 Popcorn Hour made its name with the rather fine, if also rather expensive A100 and A110 media streamers, but now it has cooked up something strange and new that promises to redefine the breed by offering some unique hardware expansion possibilities. Popcorn Hour C-200 Networked Media Tank Popcorn Hour's C-200 Networked Media …
Good review, glad the PCH team finally got some reg love (so to speak).
As stated, new firmwares are always on the agenda, and as a mater of fact a new RC was released to the beta team last night (due friday I believe).
Hopefully with a new GUI on the horizon, with a "rich object based graphical" style, rather than the current HTML style interface, things on that front should improve.
First off, firmware updates for the C-200 are not that frequent,
The gigabit interface doesn't do gigabit due hardware / firmware issues and the result is that the box will hang on file transfers (most of the blame being placed at the chipset vendor (Sigma Designs)).
Some people are finding the box is also prone to random audio drop outs when playing MKVs, where as the previous version the A-110 worked fine.
If you wish to view the true horror that is the c-200 visit the NMT website (owner forum) rather than the official popcorn site.
I have to admit I regret buying one!
I didn't want to go to the trouble of building a good media pc.
Bit expensive, interface not yet on par with a XBMC, still some problems with large mkv and DVD isos.
One solution is to "downgrade" the gigabit link to 100 Mb, and it seem to solve most problems.
Except for that, I'm very happy with this piece of kit.
Just a quick note - unless you know differently, the MyXerver is not available. I tried to buy one through Amazon after your excellent review but they kept delaying delivery before cancelling the order. Novatech did the same. According to google, it is not available anywhere and I'm not convinced it ever was - although they seem to have sent out plenty of review units. Just thought I'd mention it as you guys seem to refer to it fairly regularly.
The popcorn looks okay, but I'd far rather it could take a BluRay AND a 3.5". That way around, it would make a very versatile NAS, Media Player and BluRay all-in-one - and for similar money to buying all three separately. As it is, the 2.5" limits the storage making it no use as a NAS. Then it starts looking rather expensive.
We have a new generation of all in one units with HD graphics on-chip, which will make dedicated media players obsolete, I reckon. The Acer Aspire Revo with a USB Bluray drive is the one I settled on, although it doesn't handle HD content from files at all well, probably due to lack of CPU power. Perfect for SD content and Bluray disks, and I'm guessing that the generation just being released now will be fine with HD from disks.
Saves all those frustrations when a media player won't handle something, and you can't install new software to cope.
GJC
Sybas (the guys who made the NMT technology and license out the software) no longer have an agreement with Google for watching Youtube videos. That's why they went bye bye no my eGreat
Have PH made this one to bypass this problem?
You say it plays flash - NMTs don't as far as I'm aware (mine doesn't) - Youtube was previously an mp4 feed I think.
Nice unit - pricey though. Best used with YAMJ with a decent skin (I like unique glass black) - absolutely brilliant for media, and the first "fiance approved" bit of kit I've bought in many years.
Don't make me laugh, Windows on a media PC is a strange concept, XBMC runs much better on my PC under Ubuntu than under XP.
Plus I've got it setup to boot straight into an XBMC session, no need to even see the desktop.
And anyway, it's fairly easy to set Windows so that it doesn't download updates automatically, and even if it does you can set it to not install them without your say so.
Christ this thing is expensive! It might play virtually any format but a 360 / Tversity combination plays DIVX and AVI files easily and for a lot cheaper than this item. If I had this much money to burn I'd rather build a dedicated media PC and have fully functional device connected to my TV. But to spend this much on something you have to add to anyway is laughable!
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