Popcorn Hour A-110 / 100

[kayone]

**The official OcUK Popcorn Hour thread!**

Calling all PCH users.

Get your PCH info here!


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I'm wanting to know if the PCH can act as a 'projector' and basically project the PC screen onto the TV?

I know there is other Network Media Boxes which can do this and I'd prefer to go down the PCH route.

 

[kayone]

Anyone ordered one of these these direct from PCH?

I found them in stock in europe however 300 Euro was a little expensive as they retail for 215 USD from PCH direct on pre-order.

 

[kayone]

I'd never heard of these until yesterday, they seem to answer all my needs so may have to get one (the A-110) I have read that there is usually a 4-5 week wait once ordered as they can't keep up with the demand...I have been known to be wrong though.

If you read their forum it's taking 2-3 weeks to ship at the moment - although stock is starting to come to light in parts of europe (NL - being the first I've found)

They have shipment dates at set intervals and advertise via the forum.

 

[kayone]

I've got a PCH A-100.

Ordered it direct for PCH as it turned out to be far cheaper. Total cost was £133.64 inc. import duty and shipping. Shipping was $45 and import duty + fees was about £20.

As standard, there's no way to show your PC desktop. Perhaps there's some add-on software that will allow you to but I'm not aware of any.

Thanks for that - very re-asurring as I placed my order direct for the A-110 on Saturday, the total came to around ~£145. however it mentioned on Google Checkout - "Shipping Tax $0" which slightly bewildered me.

 

[kayone]

There's no shipping tax because it's going outside of the US. This won't stop customs charging you tax though.

Oh I see. Never really imported anything before, hopefully the customs will let this one slip!

 

[kayone]

Excellent stuff. There must be some SW out there than can enable to the PC display to be displayed on the TV via the PCH..

I'm going to look into it.

 

[kayone]

I heard that these are pretty buggy and that the latest firmware broke a few things. Vaguely remember one of those things broken being iso playback, which never worked properly to begin with.

I'll stick with xbmc for now.

There are 'teething' problems as with any new hardware however the new the firumware being produced the more fixes. The amount of problems to people purchasing seems to be very minimal.

On the other hand, going back to the original question on the thread, one of the NMT SW develpers has created a basic VNC client which enables you to control your PC via the PCH using a usb keyboard. Still very early development stages, but certainly looks promising.

 

[kayone]

PCH A-110

Any members got theirs yet?

 

[kayone]

Yup got mine. Love it.

question.. mine should be arriving shortly

1) did it come with an EU plug?

Just gotta sell my A-100 now and aint got a clue hat its worth

Have replied to your Price Check thread

 

[kayone]

Mine arrived Friday.2 pin mains plug so got a standard UK PC kettle lead out of the cupboard and used that
ordered on 23 Aug,shipped on 24 Sept.26 Sept on my doorstep all the way from china
UK companies should take note if it can be delivered all the way from china in 2 days you should be able to deliver in a few hours

That is good going - 2 days from China is rapid.. Well mine was supposed to ship on the 27th but has yet to ship.

 

[kayone]

Yeah reading the forums today over here:

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=65

Seems plenty of niggles and bugs I guess but nothing too serious, obviously its not gonna be perfect but then again it does what it ask ie play just about any format and without issue at least.

Idealy this would make a nice replacement of a pc but then I was thinking at the end of the day nothing sorta beats a PC for an All in one media box, I mean its HDMI outputs gonna be good but would it compare to say an ATI card with HD output and ATIs lovely HD streaming technology, not like its gonna beat an audio output coming from an Xonar or Xfi soundcard....

At least with the PC its all there + gaming and surfing, u can fire up utorrent/emule/rapidshare and go about your business and at least play back your media in the best quality way possible

This would still however make an amazing lazy box...

Well mine's now landed in heathrow, so hopefully shouldn't be too long now.

I agree every new product/model has it's issues especially when it's leading the market - they have promised to iron out the issues & annoyances with later firmwares which has been happening - not all at once however they are fixing them which is a great stride forward.

As for the Bittorrent clients - it also supports this

 

[kayone]

Yeah it's mega handy for more than one reason. Been waitin a long time for mine, just had my 1TB HDD roll in too just in time. should be able to bang the whole collection on - never have to pull out a DVD again!

 

[kayone]

anyone here used theirs with .NZB files? google says you can?

Mine has just landed & I'm going to be throwing every file type at it a I can, so I'll keep you posted.

Also, it has a USB slave ability, does that mean i could whack a bluray drive into an external usb caddy and use it to play bluray?

one last thing, how does it compare to this?

http://www.hdx1080.com/index.php?pa...com_virtuemart&Itemid=115&vmcchk=1&Itemid=115

Tom.

Tom I would take a look on the networkedmediatank forums - there's a wealth of knowledge on there around every aspect.

 

[kayone]

Hi guys

I got my PCH A-110 last night and I love it already! The menus are a bit clunky and slow but its great at playing video, I stuck a film on off an external hard drive and it played it straight away silky smoothly.

I haven't put a hard drive in yet but I will be soon. just wondering if anyone knew if it is possible to set up an ssh or ftp server for remote access?

Agreed - menu aint the nicest however, from reading in depth on the forum you can actually change the 'index' page to your own or one of the many swanky one's which the user group has created (some are really nice tbh)

Installed a 1TB spinpoint into mine last night and left it transferring a few different file types to test the playback. I'm sure there will be no problems!

I'm sure I read FTP access - have a browse in the forum it's full of user apps & info - I sound like one of their forum promoters

 

[kayone]

cheers - all up and running!
far far better than my buffalo linktheatre

Agreed! Mines now up & running with my 1TB Spinpoint installed. Left it transferring files over the FTP

 

[kayone]

Agreed! Mines now up & running with my 1TB Spinpoint installed. Left it transferring files over the FTP

Just for the benefit of anyone wanting to know - the files (.mkv) play perfect without a hitch.

Only snag I have now is waiting for them to impliment DTS support, which I'm told should be in their new firmware!

 

[kayone]

Sounds good man, could I know the spec on the .MKV files please, res, rate etc PM if you prefer.

I've been on and off for ages about these, keep thinking I'll get a HTPC then a PPH... I already have a AppleTV.

Thanks

I tried a mixture to be honest to put this to the test. From 720p to 1080p and also a few avi's, No problems whatso ever.

Will have a look at some in depth spec info when I'm infront of my home PC.

 

[kayone]

very happy with mine, its not gigabit so its a little slow transferring content onto it

only niggles i have so far are that
-flashfxp times out every 45s when transferring stuff by ftp, cuteftp has no such issues
-running a little warm - have it propped up now to help with airflow and may do the fan mod to add a small fan to help things
-haven't worked out if there is a function to put it into standby after a certain length of time (power and delete doesn't seem to do anything)

The Flash issue sounds client side not PCH. I use Flash and it works flawlessly and doesn't automatically d/c ever.

The box runs a little warm indeed, however the case is designed to act as a radiator to run as an addition to the heatsink on the CPU - so running warm is normal.

Power & then delete shuts down my PCH (all lights out)

 

[kayone]

i think i have only tried pressing them simultaneously rather than sequentially - DOH!

the ffxp thing is doing my head in - i think it is something to do with the stay alive settings. i have tried 2 versions of ffxp and it happens with both

I take it you've tried scanning through the 'Preferences' for idle time settings?

You can also do a SW reboot Power & then 'eject'

 

[kayone]

yup - done that no change..... , will keep trying to work it out though as i really prefer using ffxp

I'll take a look at my settings tonight - see if I can help out