Anyone have any thoughts/experience on these devices?

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/

Looks like the latest version is heavily backordered.

 

Looks neat...

 

Question: How is this different than hooking up a PC with Media Centre (+ tuner cards)? It seems like we can do all the same things (live tv, PVR, music, movies, computer files, pics, etc) that it lists in their website....but maybe I missed something....? Honestly curious of the advantage.

 

SS - It streams it...

 

just buy a PS3, you can do the same shit + have blu-ray and video games.

 

SS- the idea of a setup like this is that you could have 1 on each TV and use a central media server to stream from. These boxes are about $200 so if your going with more than 1 TV it substantially reduces your costs and is an easy way to be able to access all your content everywhere in the house.

 

It also probably runs quieter than HTPC with a processor, power supply and video card cooling fans.

I thought about building a HTPC to do the same thing, but I am at the point in my life where I would rather have someone else figure what codec is needed or why audio card x is better than audio card y just to get content from my home computer to my TV. Plus, I doubt I would be able to do a very good job for under $300.

 

I went with Western Digital's WDTV Live that came out recently. It connects to my network and will stream any media from a DNLA compliant device. You can also connect an external hard-drive to it and stream video from the hard-drive to the television.

I also added "PlayOn" to my desktop PC, that is running windows 7. The WDTV Live also recognizes the PlayOn server and I can stream Hulu, netflix, justin.tv, and video podcasts from the internet, through my computer, and to my WDTV.

Total costs: WDTV Live - $111.00 (newegg), 400 GB portable hard-drive - $50.00 (dell), PlayOn - $9.99 (used $10 off coupon and received another $20 off for subscribing to real network 14-day trial, which I cancelled before being charged.)

 

Huh, I will have to check that out too. Thanks.

 

I've got the a-110 with a 1 tb WD Black Caviar drive. i have about 100 gigs left...I had to stop downloading, and at some point I need to clean up & organize. Quite happy with the device.

 

Good to know, Adam. Have you run into any issues trying to stream any certain file types that don't work, give bad audio, etc?

 

Not really. I mean if you follow the list of supported formats, it's fine. If you try a WMV and it's not version 9, it won't play. Sometimes it's the correct format but the unpacking/dl wasn't perfect. I just try unpacking it again or redownload

popcorn also does .iso images and while wd tv live is listing the format TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), idk if it will open an iso, you would have to have the file structure?

When I got mine, WD only had their original version and it lacked a network jack so that was the loser. Since I have the 1tb drive in my pch, I just have it setup as a network drive on my computer which makes transfer easy. IDK what the capabilities are with the WD device as far as being able to access the attached usb drive...you may have to plug it into your computer to copy files?

 

My buddy is on his second popcorn hour, and loves showing it off. It's a very impressive system, especially for only $300 with the ability to strap as many USB drives on it as you can fit. Plus he has netflix set up through it, and all of his other gadgets, it's a very cool system, he just upgraded to the newest one

 

Thanks Adam and BlackAck.

I don't plan to hang any drives off it, just the network streaming. I usually try to rip movies in to ISO, so it's a bonus the Popcorn Hour can play them.

BlackAck, I am surprised your friend actually got a hold of one, they seem to be in a perpetual backorder state. Glad to hear he is fond if it. I need a new receiver, Blue Ray player, Harmony one and the popcorn hour to make my television viewing, Pandora streaming life complete.

 

Just to be clear, you can put one inside, either a notebook or regular sized one. Who couldn't use another 1tb (or 2) of space w/o using up a location in your computer? For 100 bucks I bought a the wd 1tb black WD1001FALS, no probs, good reviews.

 

Good point.