"Review" network media player Popcornhour A200

<disclaimer> After the publication of the topic “Significantly reducing the noise level from the computer in 3 minutes,” I received letters requesting to review the Popcornhour A200 network media player. I am not booming in the reviews, but I must try. To understand what is being discussed and with which I will be comparing the unit all the time, I send you to the professional review: “Review of the BBK PopcornTV NP101S network player” I use the prefix for about two weeks, so I didn’t manage to test everything. Before that, I had an A-110 year, so I will mainly compare it with it. And still - photos will be drawn from everywhere, whence it is possible, yes hosters of these pictures, whoever they are, will forgive me the habraeffect </ disclaimer>

On January 28, Popcorn Hour began accepting applications for the Popcornhour A-200 media extender. I immediately wanted it, because in it, as it seemed to me (and not in vain it seemed), the problem of suspension due to overheating had to be solved. Therefore, I didn’t look at the specifications much - I just went and ordered. But it is time to catch up. So,

specs / comparison

Connectivity
')
Bonjour
UPnP SSDP
UPnP AV
Windows Media Connect
Windows Media Player NSS
Samba
Nfs

Media Servers: myiHome, myiHomeLite, myiHomeMS (UPnP), MSP Portal
Third-party media servers: WizD, SwissCenter, Llink, GB-PVR

BitTorrent P2P
Usenet downloader

NAS Access: SMB, NFS, FTP

Casgle iDVR RSS feed downloader
Web Services *

Video: Revision 3, Videocast, CNET TV, Mediafly, Mevio, Bliptv, Break Podcast,
CBS Evening News, CNN Anderson Cooper 360 Daily, CNN The Larry King Podcast,
NBC Today Show, The CNN Daily, CNN In Case You Missed It, NBC Nightly News,
NBC Meet The Press, CBS Face the Nation, Podfinder UK, Motorz

Audio: Jamendo, iPodcast, BBC Podcast, Indiefeed, CNN News, ABC News

Photos: Flickr, Picasaweb, Pikeo, 23, Photobucket, SmugMug

RSS feed: Yahoo! Weather, NMT Forum, Bloglines, Cinecast, MSNBC News,
Traffice Condition, Yahoo! Traffic Alerts, Yahoo! News, Weather Bug

Peer-to-peer TV: SayaTV

Internet Radio: SHOUTCast ™ Radio, Radiobox, Live365 Radio

Supported Media File Formats

Video containers:
MPEG1 / 2/4 Elementary (M1V, M2V, M4V)
MPEG1 / 2 PS (M2P, MPG, DAT, VOB)
MPEG2 Transport Stream (TS, TP, TRP, M2T, M2TS, MTS)
AVI, ASF, WMV
Matroska (MKV)
MOV (H.264), MP4, RMP4

Video Decoders:
XVID SD / HD
MPEG-1
MPEG-2 MP @ HL
MPEG-4.2 ASP @ L5,720p, 1-point GMC
MPEG-4.10 (H.264): BP @ L3, MP@L4.0, HP@L4.0, HP@L4.1
WMV9: MP @ HL
SMPTE 421M (VC-1): MP @ HL, AP @ L3

Audio Containers:
AAC, M4A
MPEG audio (MP1, MP2, MP3, MPA)
Wav
Wma
FLAC
Ogg

Audio Decoders:
Dolby digital
DTS
WMA, WMA Pro
MPEG-1 Layer 1, 2, 3
MPEG-4 AAC-LC
MPEG-4 HE-AAC
MPEG-4 BSAC
LPCM
FLAC
Vorbis

Audio Pass-Through:
DTS, DTS-HD HR, DTS-HD MA
Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD

Other Formats:
ISO, IFO navigation
AVCHD navigation
Simple BD navigation

Photo Formats:
JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF

Subtitle Formats:
SRT, MicroDVD SUB, SSA, SUB / IDX
DRM

Cardea DRM (WMDRM-ND)
Janus DRM (WMDRM-PD)

Chipset

Sigma Designs SMP8643, 667MHz CPU with floating point coprocessor.
Memory

512MB DDR2 DRAM, 256MB NAND Flash
Audio / Video Outputs

HDMI v1.3a, 36bpp deep color, 12-bit xvYCC processing and
HDCP 1.2 content protection
Component Video
S-video
Composite video
Stereo Analog Audio
S / PDIF Optical and Coaxial Digital Audio
Other Interface

Power LED and Attention LED
1x USB 2.0 host at the front
1x USB 2.0 host at the back
1x USB 2.0 slave at the back
Internal mounting for 2.5 "or 3.5" SATA HDD
Infra-Red Remote Control
Full power down, standby and power up by remote control
Service pin hole for TV Mode switching and shutting down without remote control
Special design fan that generate very low noise
Speed: 3800RPM (typical) ± 10%
Noise Level: 18.5 dB (A)
Size: L * W * H = 62 * 62 * 15 (mm)
Network

Ethernet 10/100/1000 ** Mbps
** Gigabit support depends on Switch / Router compatibility
Power

AC-DC adapter
Input 100 ~ 240V AC, 50 ~ 60 Hz
Output 12V DC, 3A max
typical: 8 W (no additional device installed / attached)
maximum: 36 W
Dimension

Width x Depth x Height: 270mm x 150mm x 50mm (10.63 "x 5.90" x 1.97 ")
Weight

1.6kg (3.5lbs)
Package content

Popcorn Hour A-200 (HDD not included)
IEC 60320 C13 power cord
12V 3A AC-DC Adapter
1.5M length HDMI cable
USB cable
IR Remote Control with 2 "AAA" batteries
Screws for 2.5 "/ 3.5" HDD
Quick start guide
Installation Guide
Last minute notes
Warranty card

Dolby Digital: “Dolby” and the double-D symbol
are trademarks of Dolby Laboratories. Manufactured
under license from Dolby Laboratories.

If we compare it with the A-110, the hardware has significantly improved and some functions associated with playing BD have been added (I’m not interested personally), AVCHD navigation (potentially interesting, because my camera writes AVCHD, the new interface Rich UI, which we not yet shown, application center, widgets (maybe) and everything is as it should be. Innovations in hardware look more impressive - the processor frequency doubled, the RAM doubled, the flash volume quadrupled, S / PDIF appeared.

Feelings and initial setup

What did it give me - the average user - other than the awareness of what is higher / higher / next? And gave, I must say, a lot. The feeling is that everything flies, lists of films are instantly scrolled, playback starts, screens change, fragments are rewound. I did not count on it, but I was very pleasantly impressed. To be completely clear - I did not have the slightest claim to the A-110, but in the new A-200 the sensations improved by an order of magnitude.
I think those users of the A-110 (and other syabas-based consoles) will be interested to learn about one feature of the A-200 even before its purchase - there will be no such surprise as mine. The fact is that the A-200 can install its applications on the screws, taken out of the "old" consoles, only by preformatting them. Surprise-surprise, I have a half a terabyte of information that I don’t have to throw myself. I wriggled out by connecting the console through the USB-slave to the computer, and draining all the information on it (about 20 MB / s speed) - it took about six hours. But I downloaded it back over the network, the router pumps about 7 Mb / s and the whole operation took almost 18 hours. Be ready…
Another surprise, which I may have avoided, and maybe it would not have happened - this is the installation of applications after formatting the hard drive. The forum reported that the update does not pass and a lot and colorfully tell how and how long they solved this problem. I am on the advice of the same forum http://www.networkedmediatank.com preserved - downloaded the application on the flash drive and updated with it.
But enough about surprises, let's look at how the new console looks like.

Appearance

Well, firstly, my video . So it actually looks alive. This is such a brick of glossy plastic.

Aesthetically looks like an amateur, ambiguous impressions. Especially when you look at the picture. When you take in hand, like more. And when you put in an interior under the black TV - it rises like a native. Again, in contrast to the A-110, the design itself is much friendlier, because first, the prefix is black and does not gleam in the dark, and secondly, the LEDs installed behind the front panel are muffled. A-110 completely shamelessly shone a red LED in the eyes, strongly distracting from watching the movie, but the A-200 turns on the LED to full only at the moments of rebooting, the rest of the time it is barely warm.
Very much changed the remote. First, the arrangement of the buttons has changed, but this did not cause rejection. Apparently, the A-110 remote control was so uncomfortable that I never used it blindly, and when it came to controlling the console, I always lowered my eyes to the buttons. The new console is more comfortable and I fully believe that someday it will be possible to use it completely blindly. But while I'm not used to it. And I watch movies in the dark. Therefore, a pleasant surprise was that the buttons on the remote have lights.

Playing files

In such reviews, as a rule, the largest part is assigned to the enumeration of file formats that the device can play. Sorry, I have nothing to please you. Since I got popcorn, I forgot what the format problems are. Everything that moves is playing, but if you have a suspicion that it will not cheat on any tricky format, you can upload a sample somewhere and I will try to lose and write about the results. In general, I can’t say anything interesting for researchers of long lists of audio-video formats in this part. And for the rest: isn’t that enough - a complete lack of problems for the year of using the device (I think I can expect the A200 to inherit omnivorous from A110?!?).

Networking opportunities

Everything is the same as in A-110 - we can samba, we can nfs, ftp, upnp, torrent-rocking. Connecting to 100 megabits, there is a “support” gigabit, but without tears you can’t look at the compatibility sheet , only a handful of routers are supported, and those are not without problems. There is an opportunity to work on Wi-Fi, for this you need to buy a native dongle, it promises not to work with others. The previous set-top box played movies from a screw connected to the WL500gP (the NFS export was configured on that, and this ball was added to the network drive in A-110). But for six months now, instead of the WL500gP, I have a new Linksys WRP400, which, among other things, distributes the phone to the apartment, so no network drives. Films and music from a computer can be viewed through uPnP.
Of the services I personally use only radio (shoutcast), but in the list of services there are a lot of video and radio, so I think many will find a service to their liking. I also tested the weather service, Moscow was on the list, it showed the weather. Add to this, like, nothing.
The news (not entirely unexpected) was the lack of youtube. Did not agree on something, youtube support removed. Well, probably, this is not very critical - usability was not very high for this service on A110.

A few words about the screw

If possible, choose a 2.5 "screw - significantly reduce the heating of the viscera, and the console will weigh a little bit smaller. By the way, now you need a screwdriver to install the screw. The case is tightened with five cogs - you need to open it and install the screw on the mini-slide another four cogs, which slide in turn, another cog fixed to the base. Be sure to check the compatibility sheet .

Hanging

I get stuck. They are associated with the work of the torrent rocking. The forum is trying to understand how this is related to the number of simultaneous downloads, peers and the maximum download / download speeds. I also believed that hangs slightly depend on these parameters. The hangs occur at the moment when the download of the torrent is over and verification has begun. The load on the processor from verification + some network activity (someone is watching a video on the network or continue torrents) and hello. But! What is nice, the A200 is quietly reloaded from the console, unlike the A110. A110 had to constantly click the toggle switch, but in the A200 it simply does not exist. Press the off button for 4 seconds and the console starts blinking bright LED, indicating that it completes all the processes and goes to the shutter. After another five seconds, there is complete silence - both the processor cooler and the screw are turned off. Turning on the prefix after that takes about a minute, which causes criticism of some observers, but I, for one, don't care ... Compared to the A-110, the new prefix is stability in the flesh itself.
In general, this is all I wanted to say - you can look at the official specs above or on the website , but I tried to uncover the unobvious things that you encounter already opening the box and running to the store for the hard drive, i.e. spending not very little money.

Oh yes, a couple of words about buying

The order is executed directly on the website www.popcornhour.com , the purchase is made through Google Checkout, where, accordingly, you need to have an account, for which you need a credit card. After the purchase is made, Google removes the amount from you (I got 6.966 rubles in rubles with delivery to MO) and gives you a tracking number for the ems tracking number. Here is my tracking:

Operation	date	Index	Address	Attribute surgery	Weight, kg.)	Address of the recipient
Export	01/29/2010 7:42 PM		Hong Kong HKHKGA
Import	01/31/2010 21:22	104010	Moscow EMS		1.612	Moscow region
Treatment	02/08/2010 20:29	104010	Moscow EMS	Left the place of international exchange
Treatment	02/10/2010 04:47	130100	Moscow EMS SC	Sorting
Treatment	02/10/2010 23:11	141030	Mytischi EMS SC	Sorting
Handing over	02.11.2010 12:00	141030	Mytischi EMS SC	Delivery to the addressee	1.612

The package was brought straight home.

Well, let's sum up

pros

Omnivorous
Relative cheapness
Significantly increased speed
Significantly improved stability
Case design
New luminous remote
Switching off from the console (this, by the way, is a very serious plus - until you use the prefix, you will not appreciate it)
Ease of navigation (comparable to a VCR, the wife uses with pleasure)

Minuses

Noise from the regular fan
Case design
Small stability issues remain (freezes when verifying torrents)