Comments on: Review: Popcorn Hour A-110 vs. XBMC on AppleTV

By: tf

tf — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:39:41 +0000

I’ve used the PCH for over 2 years. I consider it the best thing I ever bought. really. it plays everything and anything I have ever downloaded. nothing else can make this claim. and XBMC uses software to do the decoding, PCH hardware decoding performance cannot be touched by XBMC.
XBMC on PCH – now that would be sick!

By: Eric Downing

Eric Downing — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:52:15 +0000

I have a PCH-A110 and a ATV. I find the ATV/XBMC interface and end user experience much more elegant and speedy, however it has trouble (read: sync, stutter, audio issues) with all but a few compression formats and bit rates.

Bottom line: I prefer the PCH as it plays my data files, any bit rate, any audio, any compression without stutter.

By: Mike Anderson

Mike Anderson — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:03:44 +0000

This is a great post … I’m still waiting for the ultimate media player that plays all my SD/HD files and easily integrates with my audio and photo content.

Really looking forward to replacing my PCH with ATV version 2 if they get it right.

By: J

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:23:18 +0000

AppleTV might get Full HD 1080p playback support as soon as guys around xbmc figure out the drivers for the Broadcom PCI-E HD accelerator card for AppleTV. Check out the xbmc forums. After it is done, the decision will be no-brainer.

By: seansan

seansan — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 05:57:36 +0000

Thanks for th review. I am hoping for more to come …. It seems difficult to decide.

Honestly I am hoping for a MacMini or other apparatus to work both as a computer & as video playback/media center for the HDTV using HDMI (pref at the same time).

By: Ray

Ray — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:59:50 +0000

I have had the original PCH A-100 for a while now and still completely love it!. I use it to watch gorgeous 1080P movies and not for admiring cover art.

By: pmcd

pmcd — Thu, 28 May 2009 07:10:56 +0000

I have both an AppleTV and a Mac Mini (09) hooked up to an HDTV. The PCH-110 seems quite intriguing and I might just get one for comparison’s sake and I like fiddling with stuff. Another option might be the Mediagate MG-800HD. The WD HD player lacks networking so that rules ot out for me, but it is certainly priced right. Anyway, I feel that the Apple TV is really underrated. My Mini with Plex is very nice and the computer doubles as a work system for me so I think that’s pretty hard to beat. I thought the ATV would pale in comarison but it does not. While XBMC is very neat on the ATV it doesn’t make use of the video card. Native files play just fine at 720p. I don’t have any 1080p files and I think for most people that is still a non-issue. Now, if you don’t want to install XBMC just install nitoTV to the ATV and Perian and you;ll be able to play anything. While I prefer streaming from either smb/afp servers I have attached a USB hard drive to the ATV and videos play great from it. The process of installing everything takes 20 minutes at most and is free. For some odd reason I actually prefer using the ATV than my Mini which is far more capable. Both solutions are very elegant and the ATV is cheaper than the PCH-110.

It will be interesting to see where Apple goes with the ATV. They are on the right track. The reason why the restrictions (which are truly easy to get around) are there is because of the video establishment. Western Digital, Mediagate, PCH, etc…don’t need to worry about that as they don’t sell/rent video/audio. Whether that will haunt them one day is unknown. It seems to me that they are temporary solutions. At the end of the day Sony’s PS3, Microsoft’s XBox or something else and Apple with the ATV/Mini/? will be the one’s left standing.

One final note. In Canada it is totally unknown as to how you’d get service for a PCH A-110. Apple, Sony and Microsoft at least back their products and that is an important issue. Perhaps it’s better in the US.

Still tempting though :)

pmcd

By: Jan

Jan — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:17:15 +0000

Well, I can tell you that the new resume/bookmark feature doesn’t work at all in my case even its listed in the release notes. And for everything else it’s pretty much the same.

By: wilco

wilco — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:46:19 +0000

Any comments now there is a new firmware for the popcornhour?

By: Jan

Jan — Sat, 02 May 2009 12:41:24 +0000

I’m using a program called “Cyberduck” and use FTP to access the PCH. It’s a lot faster than SMB (Finder) anyway. There’s a forum dedicated to the PCH series: http://www.networkedmediatank.com/
You may want to ask your questions there too.

By: FIRIE

FIRIE — Sat, 02 May 2009 12:13:49 +0000

Need help, I have a mac power book G4 version 10.4.11 and even though I eventually got to transfer movies across(after a hell of a time going through all the forums).I hit a major problem,my computer shut down while I was transfering a movie across from my external harddrive to the popcorn 110 and now cant transfer or even connect to the popcorn.Have tried to re connect through FINDER,the go with no connection.Sorry if I’m in the wrong room but desperate now. Need help asap.

By: fixmdude

fixmdude — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:32:10 +0000

Sorry I meant ‘free VNC client’ not VPN client. You can log into OSX using VNC for windows and still watch the monitor on the big screen while you control the computer. I tried using a Windows Media Center PC but when you Remote Desktop into Windows to use your keyboard then the TV goes blank and gets kicked off. OSX lets you remote in and still view the screen on the TV. (Bluetooth and Wireless keyboards kept loosing the signal or had too much lag.)

By: fixmdude

fixmdude — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:27:19 +0000

I was dis-satisfied with the speed of the appletv trying to run boxee and hulu, and the restrictions of still not being able to run video from some sites such as http://www.abc.com to watch Scrubs. So, I replaced it with the new Mac Mini for $550 after educ. discount. I use the free VPN client to log into it from my windows machine while I work and I run any format video on my big screen from my NAS, iTunes, or from any online site with no compatibility issues since it’s a full computer with full browser, yet it’s silent and only uses 10 watts at idle. It’s much faster than the other small appliances, and I use the Apple Remote to wake it up so I can remote into it from my machine to use the full mouse and keyboard as I sit in my lazyboy. I realize not everyone has an iMac sitting next to their lazyboy, but since I work all the time I do, and I found this setup to be far superior than all of the other half-way options I’ve tried. Hulu runs full screen HD now from Safari, instead of jerky through boxee through appletv.

By: ChiliDog

ChiliDog — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:08:12 +0000

Anyone ever tried the MVIX boxes?

By: Flavivirus

Flavivirus — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:49:43 +0000

Jan -

The new firmware fixes many of the points you had above, including: resume feature, improving loading and buffering times, iso loading, video ts loading, etc.

By: Jan

Jan — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:02:38 +0000

Are you dreaming? What does the latest firmware fix regarding the points above? Or do you mean “fixes” like writing to read-only volumes for resume-bookmarks?! Come on…

By: sam

sam — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:38:38 +0000

the new firmware released on 26/02/2009 (01-17-090125-15-POP-403-000) fixes pretty much all the negative things in this review, you should do a re-review.

By: Massticles

Massticles — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:08:32 +0000

All things considered, I looked into AppleTV, PCH, Divco, and even WD for my media solution. But their lack of compatibility with all of my various media files cause me to go a different route. I ended up building my own htpc for about the same cost as a PCH (if you were to add in the cost of a 1tb HDD) and I am able to run everything I have flawlessly using Mediaportal as my frontend. whodathunk?

By: Frankie

Frankie — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:33:09 +0000

Hi, Thanks for the info. I also have a PCH and am looking to buy a DM600 or DM800, there is not much HD broadcast right now and given what you say about MPEG2-TS playback the DM600 may be a better choice. Did you setup the DM600 to record files directly to the PCH? Is it possible?

By: Getwired

Getwired — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 05:00:08 +0000

Thanks for the write up. Glad to say I just ordered my PCH A-110, and will no doubt have tons of fun seeking out and playing with the jukebox stuff, setting up a killer media tank that even my wife / kids can use, and all friends will want. [Sorry, not a crApple/Macintrash/Ipoo fanboy...] ;-)

By: james

james — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:08:10 +0000

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree. I’ve never used the XBMC on apple tv, but from what i gather its something you have to search out and install as a user and not officially supported by Apple either. Which puts it on par with the jukeboxes available for the popcornhour.

I’ve installed and used every jukebox available, and personally thought as long as you can grasp the concept of local path vs popcornhour path then they’re all very easy and straight forward to setup. A few of them even have GUI installations available now too. And they’re all much faster to navigate then the stock UI.

But thats just my opinion :)

By: Satheesh.net

Satheesh.net — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:19:21 +0000

Hi!
This was a great review! Thank you! I just purchased PCH110 and I really like it. But the hang-ups and poor navigation speed annoys me a lot!
The function for downloading torrents are great and I haven’t had any problems in that part.

It does get a bit warm with the HDD installed. It really doesn’t bother me much, but I do have a few other things in there, so I can’t say I want the heat progress too much!

All in all, I’m quite satisfied with the PCH, but the small form factor on the Apple TV and the XBMC support, maybe I will switch if they manage to get 1080p resolution on future hardware.

By: Jan

Jan — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:46:59 +0000

James, I have to disagree. A PCH user has to search, find and to manually install those unofficial “skins”. Navigation is not faster when they’re installed and the installation process itself is a PITA.

By: james

james — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:43:11 +0000

To be completely fair, if you’re going to compare the Apple tv with the XBMC gui add-on then you should add in that the popcornhour has plenty of its own skins available for quicker/better navigation.

By: Jeppe

Jeppe — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:48:29 +0000

Hi!Great review but I have to disagree.
I Bought my Popcorn Hour A-110 2 weeks ago.
I´m using HDMI for picture and SPDIF(optical) for sound.
Have sound in all movies with SPDIF.
Installed a 1Gb internal Sata hd, and upgraded the firmware.
Also installed the Jukebox software so I can see
imdb movie info. and use movie covers as icons.
(Just love xbmc and wanted my A-110 to be as close to the xbmc layout as possible).
Evrything work like a dream.
Mainly playing 1080p movies form my cpu and from the internal HD.
Usualy transfer my new movies from my cpu to the int.HD over my samba network, it´s not fast but it have never disconnected.

A-110 laks resume capability but the new firm uppdate for a-100 lets you resume so you will
most likly find this function in next firmw. uppdate.
The remote works but I use my “Logitech Harmony One” instead.

Another great thing is that my A-110 with the internal HD works as a NAS-HD.

I use Xboxe´s with XBMC in my other rooms and now I can stream all my media (except HD) from my A-110 to my xbmc machines without having to turn on my computer :)

Oh, almost forgot:
I also use my A-110 to download all my torrent files and download all my usenet files.