I bought this shit so I can put movies on an external HD and watch them in the living room without having to carry my computer out like a retard. Worst purchase of the year, hands down. Doesn't play x264 and when it actually decides to work with an mkv, half the time there's no sound because it doesn't know how to read dts. On the plus side, it always seems to work with avi's, so if you have a tiny ass TV and/or don't give a fuck about HD, it's a decent purchase. Although for ~$250 I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, you could throw down a few extra bills and build a computer that would play anything. What a fucking waste of time :angryfire:
Popcorn Hour - Worst Media Player Ever Award
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You have that WD? It looks pretty good from the specs, but at the same time, Popcorn's site says it plays 264 when in reality it doesn't half the time.
I talked to a buddy of mine and he said some of these media players can't read files over ~5GB, anyone know if that's true?
Correct me if I'm wrong but that's just software right? So you'd still need to buy a brand new computer to use it.
If have an Xbox 360 or PS3 you can just stream videos on your PC directly with Windows Media Player 11 through your network.
They both seem to play all the files I thrown at them. The PS3 even worked with wmv files which I didn't expect. I don't know about DTS but the videos with AC3 (Dolby Digtal) plays back just fine.
They both seem to play all the files I thrown at them. The PS3 even worked with wmv files which I didn't expect. I don't know about DTS but the videos with AC3 (Dolby Digtal) plays back just fine.
Dude, learn how to fucking use it. I have iStar which is based on same NMT player than Popcorn Hour and I haven't encountered ANY problems with it. I watch Bluray M2TS, 720p/1080p MKVs, Xvids, Divxs, 1080i MPEG2 TS etc. and every works flawlessly from TWO external servers both running over SMB.
And I had completely custom HTPC before this and I sold it because I didn't need it for anything anymore.
So before you start to make an ass out of yourself next time, try to get your facts straight.
And I had completely custom HTPC before this and I sold it because I didn't need it for anything anymore.
So before you start to make an ass out of yourself next time, try to get your facts straight.
Oh, I just realized a hilarious thing.. this guy is a really fucking retard.. he says that it can't read DTS from MKV.. Have you ever heard of updates? This issue was fixed maybe year to 6 months ago.
One thing I just hate are these fucking pathetic losers who go on a whining rampage in public places about things they are just too fucking stupid to use. It makes always harder to sell stuff when some asshole is crying somewhere that it doesn't work when he obviously doesn't even have IQ to read the fucking manual.
Btw, Apple TV is crap compared to these NMT machines unless you actually buy everything from iTunes. Otherwise it's pain in the ass. Yes, I know, I have one.
One thing I just hate are these fucking pathetic losers who go on a whining rampage in public places about things they are just too fucking stupid to use. It makes always harder to sell stuff when some asshole is crying somewhere that it doesn't work when he obviously doesn't even have IQ to read the fucking manual.
Btw, Apple TV is crap compared to these NMT machines unless you actually buy everything from iTunes. Otherwise it's pain in the ass. Yes, I know, I have one.
I bought it about 4 months ago and updated it a few weeks ago. You have the link to the update you're talking about?
How about their official page? Here, I'm going to be nice and put a straight link: http://www.popcornhour.com/download/A110/firmware-A110.html
Yeah, but if you don't need HD (like me) you can just throw it on an old xbox ($40) and add a nice big hard drive. Plus you can still play old games... or you can just spend $150 to build a nice little pc to put it on.
I definitely need HD. I can build a PC that would play it for $150? That sounds pretty low.
I just built one for about that price a few weeks ago for a friend. I've got to head out now, but I'll post links to all the newegg parts I bought when I get back.
Newegg.com - ZOTAC N73PV-Supreme LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 7100 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
Newegg.com - Intel Celeron 430 Conroe-L 1.8GHz 512KB L2 Cache LGA 775 35W Single-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops
Newegg.com - Kingston ValueRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory
Newegg.com - Rosewill R379-SM Black/ Silver 0.8mm SGCC Steel MicroATX Slim Case Computer Case PSU ATX12V Flex 300W Power Supply - Computer Cases
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives
It's all under $200... If you already have a hard drive to use it's around $150. If you have a case, you're spending $100.
More than enough power to play movies, be used as a file server, etc...
Newegg.com - Intel Celeron 430 Conroe-L 1.8GHz 512KB L2 Cache LGA 775 35W Single-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops
Newegg.com - Kingston ValueRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory
Newegg.com - Rosewill R379-SM Black/ Silver 0.8mm SGCC Steel MicroATX Slim Case Computer Case PSU ATX12V Flex 300W Power Supply - Computer Cases
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives
It's all under $200... If you already have a hard drive to use it's around $150. If you have a case, you're spending $100.
More than enough power to play movies, be used as a file server, etc...
Thanks for the links. It doesn't need a video card though?
Don't know why but when I first built my desktop I had a 680i LT SLI, 2.13 Core 2 Duo, 2x 1GB, and a 7600GS, and it always lagged when I tried playing 1080. It stopped lagging when I clocked the cpu to 2.5, which leads me to believe that was what was causing the lag. A 1.8ghz single core has been working for you?
I haven't watched anything on it since the day I built it for him, but on that day the onboard video played 1080 just fine... no lags, skipping, etc...
And I'm pretty sure he's been using it to watch movies pretty much every day. If there was a problem, he would have called me 3 seconds later bitching about it.
If you want to upgrade, I use a Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz chip myself and I've never had any issues.
HarveyJ
He is - THE CACTUS!
Or you could just wirelessly cast the AV signal from the back of your computer with a wireless AV sender... Turns your PC into just another channel on the TV. Seriously, not exactly like there aren't about a hundred different solution to this problem already.
Yeah I upgraded to an E6850 a couple months ago, my desktop is in a different room though so it doesn't really help me with watching TV. Any thoughts on why the 2.13 didn't work?
Yeah, weird. Maybe I just had too much shit on there. Thanks for the tip though, I'll try it out.
If you don't need HD, well then you can pretty much use every solution out there.
Too bad wifi n standard isn't stable enough to stream blurays. Funny thing is that blurays usually use something like max 60Mbps bitrates and n standards max output is 300Mbps AND it's not sufficient enough to even stream smoothly 20Mbps content. Of course your results may vary but these were my findings when I tried my house wireless. I just prefer some hidden cat5 cables here and there over wireless that doesn't work properly and usually picture gets choppy in the middle of action scenes.
But if you need HD, NMT players like Popcorn Hour and iStar are only way to go. Only thing you need to know with current gen of NMT players is that they don't play well x264s that are encoded with L5.0 or "higher" preset. L4.1 is the highest the chip can hardware decode. However this isn't really a problem unless you are in the habit of taking some shitty amateur x264s from Limewire or something. 99% of movie releases in the net made by warez groups are done with L4.1. Since there actually even isn't any good reason to use L5.1 quality-wise.
So what I have done is that if I download a release that doesn't work. Like for example some fucking idiot encoded Hellboy II 1080p x264 with L5.1, you just take 720p version. Easy as that. I'm not so much into MPEG4 so I can't say for sure but in my experience for some reason all 720p encodes are done with L4.1 in the warez scene. At least I haven't still encountered 720p version that didn't play properly in iStar.
And what comes to real HD, you can't play Blurays with menus and all that shit, YET, but you can already play m2ts files which are blurays movie files and get same sound quality (yes, it does passthru True-HD and so on) and get the same picture quality.
Now tell me how much it costs to make HTPC that plays all blurays smoothly. And word of advice, Radeon maybe able to decode your blurays with GPU but you still have to have CPU power to decode the sound and I actually had to buy better CPU (AMD 3200 wasn't enough) to get movies with DTS-HD to play smooth. Video was fine but audio was causing choppiness. So don't believe the promises they are making. These new display cards may enable your set to play bluray VIDEO smoothly but audio is a whole different thing. Funny, can you find any word of warning about that in the websites?
Too bad wifi n standard isn't stable enough to stream blurays. Funny thing is that blurays usually use something like max 60Mbps bitrates and n standards max output is 300Mbps AND it's not sufficient enough to even stream smoothly 20Mbps content. Of course your results may vary but these were my findings when I tried my house wireless. I just prefer some hidden cat5 cables here and there over wireless that doesn't work properly and usually picture gets choppy in the middle of action scenes.
But if you need HD, NMT players like Popcorn Hour and iStar are only way to go. Only thing you need to know with current gen of NMT players is that they don't play well x264s that are encoded with L5.0 or "higher" preset. L4.1 is the highest the chip can hardware decode. However this isn't really a problem unless you are in the habit of taking some shitty amateur x264s from Limewire or something. 99% of movie releases in the net made by warez groups are done with L4.1. Since there actually even isn't any good reason to use L5.1 quality-wise.
So what I have done is that if I download a release that doesn't work. Like for example some fucking idiot encoded Hellboy II 1080p x264 with L5.1, you just take 720p version. Easy as that. I'm not so much into MPEG4 so I can't say for sure but in my experience for some reason all 720p encodes are done with L4.1 in the warez scene. At least I haven't still encountered 720p version that didn't play properly in iStar.
And what comes to real HD, you can't play Blurays with menus and all that shit, YET, but you can already play m2ts files which are blurays movie files and get same sound quality (yes, it does passthru True-HD and so on) and get the same picture quality.
Now tell me how much it costs to make HTPC that plays all blurays smoothly. And word of advice, Radeon maybe able to decode your blurays with GPU but you still have to have CPU power to decode the sound and I actually had to buy better CPU (AMD 3200 wasn't enough) to get movies with DTS-HD to play smooth. Video was fine but audio was causing choppiness. So don't believe the promises they are making. These new display cards may enable your set to play bluray VIDEO smoothly but audio is a whole different thing. Funny, can you find any word of warning about that in the websites?
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