Popcorn hour

[natty]

hi all

more posts today, as am bored at work

am thinkign of getting myself one of these popcorn hour thingies, as seems to do what the MVP does, but better, as supports many more formats

but, if i can in fact source one somewhere.. as they seem to be very much in demand.
just wondering if its exactly what im after

my setup at the mo, is i have a pc sitting under the stairs with a dual tv card, a gigibit lan all over the house, and a single MVP on my lone tv in the lounge

very much like the MVP, cheap and cheerful though it is, the mpeg format seems to be what lets it down. changing channels onthe telly is particularly slow, and stops my usual random hopping.
but with the gbpvr service allowin the playing of my music and all my xvids, divxs, iso dvds etc - but again with the mvp havin to transcode this before buning it at the mvp, is the Popcorn hour able to have these things working 'natively' (wrong word prolly) and thus avoid any transcoding, and use GBPVR as if i was using it on the host pc ?

not much good at explain so most likely all that babble doesnt make much sense, if can can extract my question, any answers/thoughts much appreciated

nat
anyhow,

[sub]

but, if i can in fact source one somewhere.. as they seem to be very much in demand.
just wondering if its exactly what im after

my setup at the mo, is i have a pc sitting under the stairs with a dual tv card, a gigibit lan all over the house, and a single MVP on my lone tv in the lounge

very much like the MVP, cheap and cheerful though it is, the mpeg format seems to be what lets it down. changing channels onthe telly is particularly slow, and stops my usual random hopping.
but with the gbpvr service allowin the playing of my music and all my xvids, divxs, iso dvds etc - but again with the mvp havin to transcode this before buning it at the mvp, is the Popcorn hour able to have these things working 'natively' (wrong word prolly) and thus avoid any transcoding, and use GBPVR as if i was using it on the host pc ?

The popcorn hour is great if you want to do recordings and watch them (highdef or standard def), or for watching any number of different movie formats that can be downloaded from the internet, or ripped from BluRay disks etc.

Its not great if you intend to use it for live tv and channel surfing. It popcorn hour client has some limitations around live tv at the moment, but even when these are resolved, channel changing will be at least as slow as the MVP - if not slower.

If you need quick channel changing, pretty much your only option is directly using a PC along with tuner card.

[cosmocat]

Does anybody know when these are becoming generally available, and will a UK specific model be required to work here.
Last I saw these were on "invite only" ordering still ?

[sub]

I think there waiting lists are much shorter now, but there is still a waiting list.

There is only one model sold world wide.

[jsebright]

Does anybody know when these are becoming generally available, and will a UK specific model be required to work here.
Last I saw these were on "invite only" ordering still ?

You have to register on the popcornhour website, then they send you an email inviting you to buy one when you get to the right point in the queue. I didn't order a UK specific model, but it works fine. There's no SCART, but there is HDMI, and component connectors. I can't recall what type of power lead comes with it (I might have had to switch this over) but the power adaptor just works.

When ordering you've got to select DHL shipping which adds another $45, and DHL later send you an invoice for import duty, VAT and an admin fee (a very reasonable £1.25 - much better than the post office's £8 !) for me this came to £21.35 in all.

I've had some of these sort of things before (Neuston & Snazio) and this is very much an evolutionary step - the fact that it can play reliably from SMB shares means that you don't need to run the server software if you don't want to.

There's still some teething problems but firmware upgrades are coming through at the moment fixing these. Previous experience leads me to expect that these will get the product to a fairly stable but not quite perfect state and then stop coming (but hopefully I'm wrong on that one!).

[mvallevand]

I can't recall what type of power lead comes with it (I might have had to switch this over) but the power adaptor just works.

It uses an external switching power supply and mine came with one of those "foreign" looking round plugs, I guess international orders from Canada confused someone. In any case it took the standard 3 prong computer plug and I happen to have one (or twenty) of those hanging around so this wasn't a problem.

Martin

[Lindsay]

Mine arrived today! It has a European plug which is useless to me but a std computer IEC power lead is the solution.

[psycik]

what sort of lead lindsay??

Do you need a new adapter or anything to run it here in nz?

[dandus]

Mine came yesterday. I having been playing with it just accessing an SMB share on my GBPVR machine.

Everything is playing fine except for a few minor things.
- complains on some jpeg and i notice that those jpegs have previously been rotated by WinXP;
- hang on some mp3 that looks corrupted.

On very unsatisfactory thing is its finishing. Very rough and amatuer feel.

[dandus]

what sort of lead lindsay??

Do you need a new adapter or anything to run it here in nz?

Yes. The adaptor comes with a cable+plug for connecting to the power point. It would not be hard for you to find a replacement for it. It can be just normal cable+plug for any PC power supply.