Popcorn Hour A-100/A-110

[pelle412]

I've been considering getting one of these players (http://www.popcornhour.com). Do any of you have this player? What are your experiences with it, in particular with respects to playback of x264 encoded video clips. Are there any encoding options that wreaks havoc with playback, such as too many bframes? I'm assuming that it respects the number of reference frames supported by high profile level 4.1.

[Jorgosch]

Awesome player, great community support. Have a look at their forum at www.networkedmediatank.com for more opinions.

[cjaar]

what profile should be used to hv HW compatibility with stand-alone or this PCP, 'standalone-AVC-HD' ?? using this profile can i still set the res to SD and paly fine on standalones ???

[SeeMoreDigital]

what profile should be used to hv HW compatibility with stand-alone or this PCP, 'standalone-AVC-HD' ?? using this profile can i still set the res to SD and paly fine on standalones ???Technically nothing above High@4.1 (ie: the highest supported profile used with Blu-ray players).


Cheers

[pelle412]

I have now received my A-110 and am happy to say that it exceeds all my expectations.

Plays any MKV I've thrown at it perfectly, including subtitles and chapters. The subs are nicely placed below the picture on a widescreen movie and uses a good font. I have not encountered anything within the HP4.1 spec that it can't play. I have not experimented outside 4.1 though.

2. You can even time adjust the subs on the fly! Wow!

3. It downscales HD movies when played on a non-HD display. Cool! Kinda backwards but neat anyway.

4. DTS decoding. Yay!


I haven't tried networking yet. I'm still waiting for my Wireless-N adapter.

[cwl7454]

Does anybody know why bluray players do not include DVD DL playback?

[laserfan]

Does anybody know why bluray players do not include DVD DL playback?Yr query is very OT, but... according to some, not even writeable BDs (much less DVD-R/RW) were meant to be played by standalones, and some mfrs are obeying the restriction.

[setarip_old]

according to some, not even writeable BDs (much less DVD-R/RW) were meant to be played by standalones, and some mfrs are obeying the restriction.Sounds like an effective and nasty way of minimizing illicit distribution...

[laserfan]

Sounds like an effective and nasty way of minimizing illicit distribution... Yeah, here's the inside dope (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11237686#post11237686).

[woah!]

Does anybody know why bluray players do not include DVD DL playback?

mine plays them fine... sony BDP-500

[cwl7454]

@woah!

The players also feature compatibility with an array of video formats, including BD-R/RE (BDMV and BDAV modes), DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, CD, CD-R/RW (CD-DA format), and JPEG on DVD//CD recordable media.

Need a little help on this, because it will play back +R/-R it will automaticlly playback +R DL/-R DL or would have to change book type to play back DL; which would be fine if I need to?

At the time I bought the stand alone I didn't think I would have a need to playback DL and wasn't concerned about it, but how things change. If going into bluray and their price guess need to consider conversion to DL evan more a priority.

[miklg21]

I've had the A-100 for about 6 months and love it. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to get subs to play with a .Vob file. Having some trouble, but all in all its the best streamer I have messed with and a good price for what it can do.

[woah!]

@woah!

The players also feature compatibility with an array of video formats, including BD-R/RE (BDMV and BDAV modes), DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, CD, CD-R/RW (CD-DA format), and JPEG on DVD//CD recordable media.

Need a little help on this, because it will play back +R/-R it will automaticlly playback +R DL/-R DL or would have to change book type to play back DL; which would be fine if I need to?

At the time I bought the stand alone I didn't think I would have a need to playback DL and wasn't concerned about it, but how things change. If going into bluray and their price guess need to consider conversion to DL evan more a priority.

i use dl discs for backups of my blurays, i build a iso image using imgburn with udf 2.50 formatting. then i use +R DL discs and burn the resulting image with imageburn. i have no playback issues at the layer break or anything.

heres the bat file i use to build my images:

@echo off
set SRC=SOURCE FOLDER HERE
set DEST=DISTINATION FOLDER HERE
set PathToImgBurn=C:\Program Files\ImgBurn

start /d"%PathToImgBurn%\" ImgBurn.exe /MODE BUILD /BUILDMODE IMAGEFILE /SRC "%SRC%\%1" /DEST "%DEST%\%IMAGE.ISO" /FILESYSTEM "UDF" /UDFREVISION "2.50" /VOLUMELABEL "%1" /CLOSE /NOIMAGEDETAILS /ROOTFOLDER "YES" /START


are you using dl discs for bluray backups or dvd backups?

shouldnt matter tho..

[cwl7454]

for dvd backup, current standalone player has issues with DL. exploring possibilities for when I go to bluray want to be sure that they playback DVD DL.

Looked at the Funai, so so reveiw, and also found a Panasonic that says that it will playback both -R/+R DL. Good if convert bluray to copy on DL.

[ReinerSchweinlin]

Am I missing something or are you guys way of topic?

I got one A-110 here, too and I love it :) I was thinking of tweaking my encodes to the max so I asked myself the same question as the thread starter. If selecting 4.1 Profile in all those x264 powered tools, does that automatically put me on the save side? I remember reading about some dependencie between b-frames and resolution (the higher the resolution, the lesser b-frames). With XVID, there were some few parameters (video buffer, b-frames, etc.) which I could handle manually... With x264, it´s so much more. Is there some way to ease this? Maybe a profile set for handbrake, automkv or others?

[masken]

Anyone that has compared the Popcorn/NMT players with the DViCO TViX HD players?

[ReinerSchweinlin]

My colleagues from the magazine "HDTV-Praxis" recently had a very close look at both HD-Players, so I got the chance of comparing both very thorrowly (it was the A100 back then, the A110 didn´t exist). Some other magazines in Germany, too (but must didn´t pay as much attention to detail). The differences strongly relied on the firmware. The DVICO was much more stable a few months ago and more "mature", while the popcorn hour promised (and still does) more potential for providing a more open plattform (linux inside). A few months after this test, syabas got so many updates on the firmware, I decided to go for a popcorn-hour. So far it does almost everything I want it to do (and I throw a lot of weird stuff at it..), is cheaper than the DVICO and let´s me tweak a little if I want to :) It is capable of of doing torrents, let´s me built my own movie gallery via HTML, plays everything I have in the net, on the harddrive, etc...

The DIVCO is of better built quality, has a DVR extension and a TV module as add-on. The hardware-basis is the same sigmadesigns chip in both.

The differences in codec-support are subtile nowadays... Is there something in particular you want to know? Or just generell opinion on both?

[cwl7454]

@ReinerSchweinlin

"So far it does almost everything I want it to do "

What doesn't it do, that you are aware of or have tried to do?

[ReinerSchweinlin]

@ReinerSchweinlin

"So far it does almost everything I want it to do "

What doesn't it do, that you are aware of or have tried to do?

- I have some files encoded with 5.1 profile, those stutter a little sometimes (which was to be expectet, the sigmadesigns is capable of 4.1 (=Bluray)
- By default, it doesn´t show which fps the file is in. Having custmo HTML-Jukebox, it shows
- A feature to switch to the proper fps (e.g. 1080p24) would be nice but isn´t implemented yet. It´s already on the feature request list at the developers
- Network speed isn´t that great (same with DVICO). I only get around 60% of the 100Mbit.
- swithcing resolutions sometimes hangs the player (1 out of every 40 times). simple workaround: reseting
- Transmission isn´t quite there yet. It works ok most of the times, but isn´t as rock solid as utorrent on my pc. People are working on it over at the networktank forums.

Thats about it. Of course, the request lists do ist a few things like some rare kombinations of audio and video streams in smoe containers... But that´s the case with EVERY Player... So far the Popcorn hour played every file I threw at it except the h264 5.1 profile ones. I can´t blame the popcorn for this, it´s not designed to do so and in fact I was glad to they were played at all, some stuttering, otherwise fine.

No DVD-Player so far has supported this many different file formats at this level of compatibility for me. Even mplayer sometimes refuses to handle AVi files with broken indexes korrekt. The popcorn even is able to search in some of these and never lost sync so far.

[professor_desty_nova]

- I have some files encoded with 5.1 profile, those stutter a little sometimes (which was to be expectet, the sigmadesigns is capable of 4.1 (=Bluray)

Actually, in the sigmadesigns page about the smp8635, it says about AVC:
"MPEG-4.10 (H.264) BP@L3, MP@L4.0* and HP@L4.0*
* L4.1 for Blu-ray applications".

So I guess the for sure safe maximum Level is 4.0 for files you encode. But since the reported settings for blu-ray are not the maximum permitted by L4.1, I guess files encoded for blu-ray should play well (I'm assuming that when they say "L4.1 for Blu-ray applications" they are talking about blu-ray players).

And most files end marked Level 5.1 because of reference frames, and not the other characteristics of this level (300000 kbps maximum bitrate; 1080p@120fps; etc.)

[ReinerSchweinlin]

Yes, the high amount of reference frames or too many b-frames is the reason why some frames get lost. At least the popcron keeps its sync :)

[jj666]

4.0 files play back perfect.
5.0+ files are rule #6 issue (or people need to learn to encode properly) ;-)

Quite a collection of Blu-rays here, remuxing and dropping all audio to DTS 1536kb/s works perfectly with Istar 1.3 (NMT firmware). Once there is a 100% efficient solution to remuxing of HD audio, I'm sure this will work fine too as all of the HD audio codecs are supported via HDMI. For that type of thing, I really can't recommend the players enough.

-jj-

[nurbs]

Does it stretch anamorphic encodes (AVC in MKV) correctly?

[canuckerfan]

Does it stretch anamorphic encodes (AVC in MKV) correctly?

all the mkv's i've tried (roughly 30) AR does not look to be problematic.

[nurbs]

OK, I guess I will buy one. :thanks:

[ACrowley]

I have the A110 now :) Its a wondefull Player:) I use it with a 1TB WD Caviar GP 32MB 5400-7200 HDD and with Streaming from my PC (Vistax64)

It plays all my x264 Level 4.1 Compliant Encodes without any Problem. DTS-HD/TrueHD/EAC3 Passthough works very good too when you mux it into M2TS with TSMuxer.

M2TS Streams from BluRay with Mpeg2/VC1/AVC are working perfect too.
WVC1 +WMA in WMV ,also no Problem. TS Streams in Mpeg2 PAL or 720p 50fps ansd 1080i H264 from DVbViewer are working flawless.

Ofcourse the A110 wont play older unrestricted Level x264 Encodes . And sadly no FLAC in MKV at the Moment.
However..its a really great Player. I Love it!

[mariner]

Greetings ACrowley.

Does it play 1920x1080/60p MP4 AVC(H264) video with AAC audio?

Here are links to some samples:

http://ckworks.sakura.ne.jp/data/xacti_hd2000_dogsample20090207_1_mp4.zip
http://ckworks.sakura.ne.jp/data/xacti_hd2000_dogsample20090207_2a_mp4.zip
http://88.191.20.67/video/akiba/SANYO_HD2000_1920x1080_60fps.zip

Many thanks and best regards.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Does it play 1920x1080/60p MP4 AVC(H264) video with AAC audio?

Many thanks and best regards.I'm able to play the Sanyo 1920x1080p60 source using my Ziova CS615 ;)

That said.... I noticed that the Sanyo's AVC video stream has a profile of high@L4.2, which might cause playback issues if the audio and video streams are kept within the .MP4 container. Indeed, I had to re-mux the streams into the .TS container before playback ;)

[ACrowley]

Greetings ACrowley.

Does it play 1920x1080/60p MP4 AVC(H264) video with AAC audio?

Here are links to some samples:

http://ckworks.sakura.ne.jp/data/xacti_hd2000_dogsample20090207_1_mp4.zip
http://ckworks.sakura.ne.jp/data/xacti_hd2000_dogsample20090207_2a_mp4.zip
http://88.191.20.67/video/akiba/SANYO_HD2000_1920x1080_60fps.zip

Many thanks and best regards.

It plays all Mpeg4 AVC Video Files (in mp4/mkv/m2ts/ts)when it follows the Level 4.1 Rules.

1920x1080 = 4 Ref Frames / 1920x800/816 = 5
1280x720=9 /1280x544/536/528=11 Ref Frames

It can be (maximum)Level 5.1 too when the Reframes are correct. Usually you can play/stream all H(x)264 Files on the Popcorn which are working in DXVA Mode on PC (MPC-HC/Cyberlink etc)

MP4 with 5.1 AAC is no Problem. 1080p should work with all Framerates (24/50/60). I will test your Samples. But hey ...500MB Samples ?

EDIT: Yes, Video plays at 1080p 60fps. But i get no Sound and its stuttering caused by the AAC, Should be fine remuxed to m2ts with AC3

[mariner]

Greetings SeeMoreDigital and ACrowley. Thanks for the reply.

So both units will be able to handle the .mp4 container but not the AAC audio. Will they handle the AVCHD folder structure created by deank's latest multiAVCHD?

Do both units use the same Sigma chipset?

Mnny thanks and best regards.

[SeeMoreDigital]

So both units will be able to handle the .mp4 container but not the AAC audio.After re-muxing the file, my Ziova played the AAC audio.

Will they handle the AVCHD folder structure created by deank's latest multiAVCHD?Personally I don't know. That said, the AVCHD specification does not support AAC audio.

Do both units use the same Sigma chipset?Yes.... Sigma Designs SMP8635 chip-set. However, the one in the A-110 is probably a newer version.

[mariner]

Ah yes. Ziova will handle AAC in TS container.

The latest version of multiAVCHD converts AAC audio to AC3. It may just work.

Thanks and best regards.

[SeeMoreDigital]

The latest version of multiAVCHD converts AAC audio to AC3. It may just work.That's clever :)

As a keen supporter or the .MP4 container, I have to admit, the "transport" containers seem far more stable on these types of devices... Even MPEG-4 (ASP) Part-2 in .TS works a charm (which you can create using VLC player).


Cheers

[ACrowley]

@Mariner:
Popcornhour A110 CANT play AVCHD or BluRay Structures .
But it plays the single M2TS/MKV,TS,Mpeg,WMV.. Files !

Nevermind (in my Case) ,because i have a Sony BDP S350 Bluray Player for AVCHD/Bluray.
I bought the Popcornhour for my Remuxes/reencodes from various Sources like HD/SDTV or BluRay

When you need AVCHD/Bluray with/without Menus etc better by a BlurayPlayer and not a Popcornhour

[mariner]

Many thanks for the info, ACrowley.
Best regards.

[howardchang]

Hello All.

Here is a chance to win a free HDX 1000 (a Popcornhour A-110 equivalent). We need to gather some information about how you use (or plan to use) your NMT player. If you can go to THIS PAGE (http://www.amperordirect.com/pc/m-promotion/z-reference-hdx1000-drawing-2.html) and tell us:

1. How do you plan to hook the HDX 1000 to the network?
2. What are the video formats you usually play by the HDX 1000?
3. Do you plan to install an internal HDD? If so, what is the capacity you prefer?

You are entered in the drawing taken place on 4/6 for a free HDX 1000.

It will be great if you can also give us some suggestions.

Gook luck on the drawing!

[SeeMoreDigital]

The drawing winner will be listed on AmperorDirect's homepage on April 6th, 2009. Bookmark us and come back to check the results.

*** Please note that we can only ship the prize to US address.That's quite a few of us out of the running then :eek:

[howardchang]

That's quite a few of us out of the running then :eek:

Sorry.... got a marketing budget constrain....

[howardchang]

We have 105 participants in the survey. Here are the results.


1. How do you plan to hook the HDX 1000 to the network?

70%: Wire, 25%: Wireless, 2 people: Powerline connection

2. What are the video formats you usually play by the HDX 1000?

Top 5: mkv (59%), avi (56%), mpeg (41%), iso (39%) and wmv (24%)

3. Do you plan to install an internal HDD? If so, what is the capacity you prefer?

80% prefer to install internal HDD. > 50% wants to install >= 1TB HDD.

Please go HERE (http://learnhd.blogspot.com/2009/04/interesting-hdx-1000-marketing-survey.html) to see the details.


Happy Easter!

[Wilbert]

I also bought one (A-110 player with internal HDD)!! When playing an avi+srt (muxed subtitles), the subs are not visible thought.

Could someone explain to me how to connect this player to my pc?

It's visible in my internet browser as http://192.168.1.101:8088/ (i connected the A-110 player to my router). I see the name "Pch-a110" under 'My Network Places" -> "Computers Near Me", however when clicking on it, i get

\\Pch-a110 not accessible
The network path was not found

[Wilbert]

Hmm, it seems that my firewall (ZoneAlarm) was causing that problem. Solved it. Thanks anyway!

[SeeMoreDigital]

Nice purchase Wilbert ;)

Are you connecting your player to an HDMI enabled DSS amp (with high-def audio capabilities) by any chance?

[Wilbert]

Yes, thanks!

Are you connecting your player to an HDMI enabled DSS amp (with high-def audio capabilities) by any chance?
I don't think my home cinema set has a hdmi connection. I do have an optical cable, but i still need to connect that to my home cinema set.

[CruNcher]

Does somebody has links to Power Measurements of such a Sigma DSP based Solution like the WD TV or Popcorn Hour @ playing 1080p 20-40 mbit CABAC HP4.1 AVC (maybe + AACS Decryption) ?

found something http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/general-discussion/9028-power-consumption-av-equipment-how-much-does-cost-run-these-things.html (off course the most power draw comes from the mechanical HDD) not sure with what he tested if someone knows other tests, or has tested it on his own keep the results coming :)

Im currently working with a Atom Z series and GMA 500 (PICO-ITX Board) and the power out is amazing (not in the range of tegra but...) not bad for such flexibility

[ReinerSchweinlin]

My A110 equipped with a 1TB WD Eco-Drive:

Bootup: 20-27 Watts (depending on heavy seeks or not)
when ready and "on", doing nothing, HD spinning: 18-20 Watts
when in Standby (red LED), HD off: 13-16 Watts
Playing Content: between 20 Watts (xvid SD, MPEG1/2) and 23 Watts (1080p/h264,DTS downmix,highest possible settings)
A110 turned off via remote (power+DEL): 13-16 Watts
A110 disconnected from power supply: 4-6 Watts
power supply unplugged: 0 watts :)

All measurments with a standard "home use" measurement device (which are known not to be most precise when dealing with a few watts), so fluctuations in the measurement could result from the measurement device.

My Atom 330 with a 2,5" driver on an intel board (no extras, plain install) with an "standard" PS is going up to 40 watts when driven hard and is lurking around 28 Watts when doing nothing under winXP.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I guess at these kinds of wattages, an A110 could be used as an all purpose NAS :eek:

[ReinerSchweinlin]

The transfer speed of the built-in network is limited (I´ve seen this on many Sigmadesign based players) at around 4MB/s (usually I get around 9 between 2 PCs).. But if that´s enough.... It even has a small FTP and HTTP Server build in, does bittorrent via Transmission and with the samba-server inside, it serves all kinds of tasks here in my home. Even uPNP Media-Services are possible, I used my iPod touch as a remote for music playback (switched to iTunes on a small PC though, it´s much mor comfortable and deals with large quantities of music files better than the upnp-Solution on the popcorn hour).

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi Reiner,

Are other computers able to see data stored on external HDD's connected via USB to the A110?

[CruNcher]

yeah compared to the 220mw tegra needs for 1080p playback (according to Nvidia) even the Atom Z paulsbo combination with around 5W is still heavy sucking power :P


@ReinerSchweinlin
First of all thx for these results the WD Eco i assume takes somewhere @ playback say 5-8W of the 23W total power so with audio the Popcorn Hour consumes somehwere like 18W ?
could you measure with a plain Bitstream without audio and maybe no container or a .ts container without audio i guess the Sigma DSP has hardware support for TS

[SeeMoreDigital]

i guess the Sigma DSP has hardware support for TSAs far as I'm aware it should support the following video containers: AVI, DIVX, MP4, MOV, MPG, VOB, MKV, TS, M2TS (might even support M2V) :)