Popcorn Failures

[Mr. Camaro]

Was trying to see how reliable the PHC has been for GBPVR users.

1. How many people have got one and had no issues.

2. How many people have had to RMA the unit once?

3. How many people have had to RMA the unit twice?

4. How many people have had to RMA the unit 3 times or more?

[mvallevand]

My vote is actually no RMA's times two PCH's. Actually my Canadian machine was shipped with a 220volt round plug.

Martin

[Mr. Camaro]

Wow this is nice. I'm starting to be more faithful in my Popcorn Hour after seeing how few people have had problems with them. I just got my third one back and this has been working perfect now for 3 days. Hopefully, it will stay that way. Just in case anyone else runs into this, I wanted to document what my problems were.

My first one would work but locked up about every 10 minutes if you were navigating through the windows. At first I just thought that was the way it was. Eventually it locked up and would not come back. After getting a new one, I now know my first one was bad from the start.

My second one worked a lot better than the first one, then my network chip went out. You can tell this if your MAC id turns to all zeros. There are some discussions on the other boards that the PHC is not properly buffered against a voltage spike on the network. Some people have put a switch right near the PHC to try to prevent this.

Again it is good to see that my problems are not the norm. Neat to see how many people are using the PHC too.

[martint123]

Mine is back and working fine. I'm still worried though because the same part seems to be failing in the majority of returns. (Realtek ethernet chip).

[SFX Group]

Mine is back and working fine. I'm still worried though because the same part seems to be failing in the majority of returns. (Realtek ethernet chip).

That will be the "Realtek" part of that then.......

Being IT engineer, these are used on most boards, there not very fast in terms of Network speed packet handling. 3COM are the best, Intel behind this (there on board normally on all Intel Boards), after this you have Realtek who everone uses.

[cc1091]

I've had my PCH for a few days now, so probably not enough time for problems to develop. Still I have some gripes, and I don't want to start a new thread to post them.

Here are my gripes, disappointments, failings about the PCH A-110
1. Sound quality is terrible. Yes, it is stereo or 5.1 when available, but the audio range can't be 20hz to 20Khz. There is no impact to the audio, as if it is so compressed that even good sources sound like they're playing from a cheap mono radio (even when all channels are present and working in stereo/5.1).
2. Newer firmware seems to be more susceptible to dropping network feeds from internet related sites.
3. PCH A-110 seems to be often affected by static electricity. Perhaps this is inadequate grounding of the unit? Obviously could have negative effect on any hard drive installed in the unit (I do not have one).
4. Considerably more difficult to set up with GBPVR than I had anticipated. Perhaps I will add more once I actually do have it working with GBPVR (three days now and still no GBPVR connectivity, though today is the first weekend I've had).
5. Video quality - I suppose this is very dependent on the source. Movies from a remote hard drive aren't too bad, but still not like feeding them directly into the system from a local computer. Colors are not as vibrant. Oddly, digital copies of 60s television shows look very nice. More complex video seems to not translate well through PCH.

For a little over $200, I suppose it is quite a fine unit for a remote TV connected to a low quality audio system. But don't expect it to satisfactorily fill the bill of supplying high quality audio and video to a high quality audio and video system. You would be better off configuring a new PC to perform this task.

[mvallevand]

cc1091, you have a lot of gripes but really not enough detail on your setup to comment. My audio and video are comparably to any other system I have seen, but a true high end HTPC would be better quality. Make sure your audio is not in the red though, that will distort.

Never spend more than an hour configuring the PCH, it's not worth the aggravation, you are missing something. Try the new installer too.

Martin

[trummel]

I hate to tempt fate, but..... I have 3xPCH, an A110 and 2xB110. The A110 is about 3 month old, the B's only about a month, all are heavilly used and so far no faults found.

As to setup, there is always something to tweak, but time to up and running with the first one was about 3 hours, mostly because I didn't understand the PCH or GBPVR. The second 2 went in with virtually no fiddling required - less than ten minutes each. It actually took longest to mount them in the miniATX cases. I also didn't bother with disks in the B110's. For me, the only downside to that is that I can't autoboot to GBPVR as easily which effects the WAF.

A/V quality wise, I find them excellent. A good quality feed from BBCHD and output to 46" Sony screens and an old but reasonable Technics stereo produces quality I and the boss are really happy with. Mind you, neither of us would volunteer for the audiophile summer camp.

My only real gripe is the buffering delays as the video is passed from GBPVR to PCH, but I can live with that and I know Martin is working on things for the future.

[martint123]

I'd also have to say that I find absolutely nothing wrong with the video or audio of my PCH.
It is better and considerably more convenient than having to have a PC in the lounge.

Watching BBC HD h264 on a large 1080p produce stunning pictures. The PCH also seems to do a fairly good job at upscaling from SD material.

cc1091 - if possible can you view another PCH and compare? from your description I would have to say something was wrong with it.

I haven't tried Martins new installer yet, but with the earlier one and his most helpful assistance in the early stages, it shouldn't take that long to get it running.

[steveum]

I have had my PCH for about 6 months. I think the picture quality is amazing. I use it to watch recorded HD and SD along with ripped DVDs. The SD quality often looks better through the PCH than using the TVs tuner. DVDs are upconverted to near HD quality.

I just use the 2 channel analog audio out, but I never have thought it sounds bad.