Customer Reviews

Popcorn Hour A-200 Networked Media Tank (Black)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Pros:
I've had the A-200 for 4 days now and so far it works great. It was very easy to setup on my 10/100 wired network and have it access a Buffalo 4TB Linkstation hosting all my backed up DVDs stored as ISO images. The Popcorn Hour has no problems in playing any one of these images. I've tried .VOB and .AVI formats also with success. Navigation to the videos is folder based and is as easy as using Windows Explorer to get to the video you wish to play. The main reason I bought this unit is because of all the different video formats it can play and the rave reviews it has received. My TV is a 55" Samsung 8000 series that has DNLA built into it but its very lame. You can't FF or REV the movie and depending on the video container you can't even pause the movie. The Popcorn Hour A-200 performs all these functions without flaw including "jump to chapter". It also automaticaly sets a bookmark on the movie you are watching when you push the Stop Button. When you select that movie again, it resumes at the bookmark. It will set bookmarks for 10 different movies. The unit does contain a cooling fan but you can't hear it unless you put your ear next to it. At first glance, the remote control looked like a universal remote because of all the buttons on it but its not. All those buttons control different features of the A-200.

The reason I gave it a 4 star rating is because it doesn't come with a manual, just a quick start guide and the font is very small. Also if you have any questions, there is no phone # to call but there is support online and also a forum to post your questions.

If you are not a techy then this unit is for you, it works right out of the box.
If you are techy then you can have lots of fun with this, applying different skins, writing your own skins...

I am not disappointed at all with this purchase.

Cons:
I don't have anything serious to complain about it except:
It does get a little warm.
It can use some weight. With the amount of cables attached to it, it tends to not lay flat unless you arrange the cables just right.
A manual would be good.

Update
I've had the PCH for 3 months now and the "New Toy Feeling" has worn off. I have loaded 400 movies onto my NAS and every one of them plays beautifully through the Popcorn Hour (PCH). There is one thing that bugs me about it, the IR sensor that picks up signals from the remote is very narrow. If you don't point the remote directly at the unit then it won't pickup the signal. I use a Logitech Harmony 7 remote and all of the devices that it controls responds well even when I point the remote to a white wall behind me but the PCH will not respond unless the remote is pointed directly at it and parallel with it's sensor. A small inconvience considering all of its other features that work very well.

I believe the a-200 is a very good product. It will pretty much play any file format you throw at it. It will play back both dvd and bluray isos as well as the popular mkv or m2ts format which products like the playstation 3 and xbox 360 will not do. Regarding cons I would first like to point out that I DID NOT notice the loud fan noise everyone here is pointing out. But I did notice that the product does get very hot. The trick is to shut down the system by holding down the power button. Otherwise, by simply hitting the power button once the unit stays in stand by while continually powering the unit which is somewhat of an annoyance. To avoid the heat issue I avoid using an internal hard drive and stick to an external hard drive. I initially installed an internal hard drive but found the device to get very hot. This may be a problem for some as it requires a internal hd to run certain applications. Personally I don't use them. Whether the heat caused by the internal hd would be a problem or not is a question but its not a risk I'm willing to take. I will say that the design of the case is a bit cheap. The biggest thing that concerns me is that the heat vents are on the bottom of the unit and as any average joe knows, heat rises! For anyone wondering there are custom metal cases out there that are of much better quality. The interface is clunking but has an awesome streamlined alternative known as Yet Another Movie Jukebox (YAMJ). YAMJ is very good and is makes browsing collections a snap. As far as the big kicker that got be to purchase the a-200 over products like the wd-live plus is the audio passthrough. The a-200 will bitstream high def audio formats to a receiver such as DTS MA HD audio and Dolby TruHD through backup files. Last I read the WD Live was able to bitstream TruHD but not sure on that. Western Digitial says it will never bitstream DTS MA. Other complaints I have is that the documentation is lousy. When you buy this expect to do a lot of internet searching for usuage. But after a little reading the device is very easy to use. I will say that a plus is that firmware updates are a huge step forward but not always the quickest to come out. But no product is perfect. Overall it has been a great purchase for my families needs.

I got 2 of the A-200 for the bedrooms in my home. They play all my videos great and I have no problems at all.
The people that complain about the fan noise must have sonic ears as I can barly hear it it I put it next to my head. I would recomend this player to anyone who wants a great media player. Stay away from the WDTV Live units as I replaced 2 of them with this and will buy another later on.
Great unit for the price!!!!

We have 3 of these now in our own house and have since setup another 7 or so in friends houses. We all love them. The only thing i would add is that the controllers are really touchy. You have to be pointing exactly at the popcorn box or it won't work. The main thing we loved about these units though is that you can use custom GUI's. That is what sold us.

Let me start by saying for my money popcorn hour makes some of the best media players on the market. If you buy one it will do what it is suppose to do. I haven't found a file type that it won't play. If I was reviewing this product just on the performance of the device itself then I would give it five stars but since I'm reviewing the unit as a whole I can only give it three stars. This is because the biggest draw back of this unit is the cheap plastic case and fan noise. The original A-100 and A-110 had a metal case and was fanless. When they came out with the A-200 they ditched the metal and went with a cheap plastic case and a fan. This cheap plastic almost makes you think you might break something when removing the cover to drop a harddrive in it. The other bad point is the loud fan noise which stays on even when it is in stand by. If you are a light sleeper and this is in the room with you it can drive you nuts. When I originally bought the a-200 I paid $199.99. It is now listed at $179.99 and they have come out with a new model the a-210 which is listed at $199.99 The manufacturer must have gotten tired of the complaints about the case and fan noise because they went back to a metal case in the newer model. If I was in the market for something like the popcorn hour I think I would spend the extra $20.00 and get the a-210 because it looks like they have eliminated the shortcomings of the a-200.

I've had an A200(ordered directly from PCH) since they were first released at the end of January. If it wasn't for the loud fan I would give it five stars. The loud fan is the only bad thing about the A200. It plays almost everything I throw at it. And you get alot for the low price.

I bought my A-200 from the Popcorn Hour's website, and my family loves it! It plays pretty much every format we can throw at it. I haven't noticed the fan noise that others have commented on, my unit is barely audible (and you cannot hear it at all once you start playing media). The black case is very unintrusive and fits in very nice with the rest of my AV gear. One of the things I really love about the Popcorn hour is how expandable and customizable it is. I have a Windows Home Server, and installed Yet Another Movie Jukebox (YAMJ) on the A-200. With this, the A-200 displays a beautiful UI with poster art and all the meta data for the media content (here is some info on YAMJ [...]). Overall, this is the best media player that I have used (the only thing that comes close kaleidescape which costs thousands of dollars).

The A-200 is a great media player, It has handled everything I throw at it without issue. It handles all the high def audio codecs with ease too. The customization is pretty good too, with the ability to run other jukeboxes besides the included one(which isn't bad... I run Yamj with the Zappiti look-a-like skin). I am thrilled with it's playability and customizability. The remote that comes with it is pretty darn good too, although I don't think it is able to control other devices. It is backlit(which is a HUGE plus) and has a nice feel.

The things I'm not thrilled with...

On the software side, setting it up can be a bear, depending on what you want out if it. I wanted it as familiy friendly as possible and this required some work(and either a thumbdrive or installed harddrive... I use a thumbdrive), compared to my Boxee. The main drawback is without installing some core apps and editing of system files, there's no way to mount more than one share at a time. Because of this, the included jukebox, while easy to use, builds an independent jukebox for each share. So when a person is in a jukebox, they are not seeing all the movies that are avaialble. They have to bounce back to a file listing and select another share and open that jukebox. This is not very family friendly IMO. A jukebox like Yamj is better in this regard because it WILL build an all-in-one jukebox that shows all your movies across multiple shares. However, as I mentioned, if the share isn't mounted, the movie won't play. I got around this by installing a shartup script and adding auto mount commands to it to mount all my shares when the A-200 starts. It solved the problem, but it's not something a non-technically inclined person can easily do or even want to do. I really don't know why PCH doesn't mount multiple shares via a simple say checkbox in the settings? It would make things a whole lot easier for people

The interface overall is sluggish IMO. I can zip around my Boxee Box's interface but with this thing, there is no zip what so ever. You have to be very methodical with you key presses. The jukeboxes seem particularly slow(both the built in one and Yamj), especially when paging.

The IR receiver on the box is annoying as well.. I don't know why this is, but it requires you to be VERY direct with the remote aiming for it to be picked up. It becomes frustrating at times. Hopefully once I get my Harmony set up, it will be a little better.

On the hardware side, while I actually don't mind the actual style of the thing, but the case is pretty cheap plastic which when you have a bunch of cables connected can be hard to make to lay flat.

The fan... well, after dealing with it for a week now, I can say it IS starting to get annoying. It's not that loud, but it can get annoying after a while, especially if you want to put this in a quiet room. I'm really not sure what PCH was thinking with this. I guess that's why they came out with the A-210. The A-210 is something I am considering but with shipping from PHC, the price difference between this and the A-210 is about $70. That's a LOT IMO. I actually wanted to go with another Boxee Box(I have one) but Boxee won't work on my older non-HDMI HDTV.

Anyway, I gave this 3 stars because, while it is a great player and I love the flexibiliy the customization, it's a pain to set up if you want it to be as family friendly as something like a Boxee Box, the menus are sluggish and the fan can get annoying.

**UPDATE 5/4/2011**
I returned the A-200 and went with the A-210 and glad I did. It is much more solidly built, with no fan whatsoever, so no annoying fan noise. Also, the IR on the thing works a LOT better, like it should. I don't have to be aiming directly at the thing for it to pick it up(this was aggravating me more on the A-200 than the fan noise). IMO the A-210 was worth the extra cost.

I purchased this product after trying multiple other media players. This is the only one that reliably plays anything I ask of it, including movies with hi def audio tracks such as dtsma, true HD, etc. The Western Digital couldn't handle those files consistently, nor could it reliably play lossless audio files. I've not yet installed a hard drive into the unit, and have yet to use some other features, but it is already well worth the money for both streaming media from Mac as well as external hdd.

Quite installed a 2tb WD green HD and just the cpu fan area gets a little warm, much better than the xbox360 I have been useing. any issue with soft ware will get worked out, like any thing like this it takes some time to perfect it.