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Popcorn Hour C-200

P

PRStud

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 1, 2008
Messages
80
I've ordered the new Popcorn Hour C-200 and will be using a Harmony 1100 remote on my home entertaiment center. Any input or feed back on the C-200 and is anyone using it with the Harmony 1100?
 
I've looked into these for some time. I looked at the A-110, but this one looks quite a bit better. Let us know how it turns out. Anyone out there that has a good review on this one, I might need another gadget?
 
also check mpc club I think they did a review on it.

I tried to find out if you could use something like the $50 liteon bd player in this but no one replied.
 
sparks said:
also check mpc club I think they did a review on it.

I tried to find out if you could use something like the $50 liteon bd player in this but no one replied.
Click to expand...
Good question, some of them do accept optical drives, so the potential is there (one would hope).

Almost forgot about the NetworkMediaTank and the MPC forums, more great resources.

The western digital media player 2 will supposedly be released any day now, if it hasn't been already.
 
HTPC > PCH. Can't stand the archaic interface (doesn't seem like the C200 evolved too much) and the speed of it (C200 is faster, but no indications on how much faster scrolling the 11 line limited interface would take). Plus the costs.. $300, you're in HTPC territory. The PCH was an awesome awesome awesome starter/learning tool, but its limitations have become blatantly obvious that I can't ignore.
 
lowteckh said:
HTPC > PCH. Can't stand the archaic interface (doesn't seem like the C200 evolved too much) and the speed of it (C200 is faster, but no indications on how much faster scrolling the 11 line limited interface would take). Plus the costs.. $300, you're in HTPC territory. The PCH was an awesome awesome awesome starter/learning tool, but its limitations have become blatantly obvious that I can't ignore.
Click to expand...

Might want to look at http://omertron.com/pch/ or the NMT forums YAMJ section a little before you spread that bullshit any farther.
 
I've actually thought about dumping my HTPC and getting one of these. Less hassles. My HTPC needs some upgrades anyways.
 
I was thinking about getting one of these too. My main concern is how much noise they make. My preference is 0.
 
I don't recall seeing a fan in the C200. There's a fan mount but does not include a fan. Probably for stuffing HDs and Optical drives in.
 
At this point I keep reading the GLOWING reviews. Can't wait to see on in action. It almost looks too good to be true. On the HTPC topic.... depends on what your goal is. If you've got a good computer on the other end and want to stream this looks like this is the device for you. Simple and effective. I saw that the case had the ability to house a fan, but wasn't needed in its stock form. My question is on the HDD; Is it needed SIMPLY for storage? Will it help in buffering? Anybody know these answers?
 
j1b1e1 said:
At this point I keep reading the GLOWING reviews. Can't wait to see on in action. It almost looks too good to be true. On the HTPC topic.... depends on what your goal is. If you've got a good computer on the other end and want to stream this looks like this is the device for you. Simple and effective. I saw that the case had the ability to house a fan, but wasn't needed in its stock form. My question is on the HDD; Is it needed SIMPLY for storage? Will it help in buffering? Anybody know these answers?
Click to expand...

A HD is not needed. It's just another storage option if you so choose. I would stream from my server.
 
Archer75 said:
A HD is not needed. It's just another storage option if you so choose. I would stream from my server.
Click to expand...

+1. The HD is really just there for people without the network storage option; as you said this is mainly a streaming box, and IMO aimed more at the home theater crowd than the DVR'ing bunch.
 
Resurrecting this; Anybody recieved one of these as of yet? Reviews look good at this point, but I see a waiting list a mile long... PRStud - Got yours? I see as of the 9-18-09 you said you had it ordered. Like what you've seen so far?
 
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This was sent out on 9/28/2009........Looks like Popcorn Hour would be providing more info........maybe Christmas??

C-200 Delay Announcement
Dear Popcorn Hour Patrons,

I’d like to start by thanking those of you who have been patient in regards to your orders. I’m sure many of you are no doubt waiting anxiously for your shiny new C-200 to arrive. Since the launch on our site, we’ve had many different announcements as to when the product will ship and then about delays for said orders. With each and every post we have frustrated you as well as plenty of our own staff. Before now we’ve only mentioned that there will be delays and have yet to provide any information regarding why. Because of your patience and understanding, we feel it only right to share with you more information so you are better informed about the situation.

The first cause for delay was that we started taking orders without enough stock produced. We thought the device would be popular, we just had no idea how much so; and for that we thank you. The second cause for delay was that an entire batch of units had a mechanical defect on the case that created problems when installing a hard drive. The third cause has been one of the most devastating. The plant that is manufacturing our aluminum brushed front panels has repeatedly brought us batches that we have had to reject due to poor quality. We don’t want to pass off inferior products to you just as much as you don’t want them. Our fourth cause for delay has yet to occur. The factory we use will be off from October 1st through the 8th due to Golden Week in China. That’s one week of production greatly needed, but unavailable.

At this time we are trying to produce as many players as possible, without lowering our standards for a quality product. However, the culmination of these delays has affected our shipping schedule. We’re looking to ship batch 2 on or around the 30th of September. Due to the holiday delay, batch 3 is estimated to ship October 26th. We know that this will upset some of you, as it has us. We do apologize for the continued delay and want to assure you that we will be doing all that is possible to ship your orders as soon as possible. Thank you again for your patience and understanding.

With humblest regards,
The Popcorn Hour Team
 
I received my C200 yesterday and started the installation late last night. Popcorn seems to be catching up to the demand. It appears that they are shipping new large batches weekly. Great to have the new toy.
 
Still awaiting a delivery.... Can't wait! There's hope on the horizon from the sounds of it. At least I've heard of someone getting one. Any one else had any experience with this thing at this point?
 
I was just setting up the c200 for a buddy of mine. Pain in the ass. This is not for novices which is sad because the device is geared towards people who can't setup a HTPC.

Out of the box it's almost unusable. It won't connect to the net to update firmware. It wouldn't connect to WHS even though I know the address, username and password. I had to enable a guest account on WHS. It would stutter like crazy on my high bitrate rips and wouldn't play flac. And you can't format a hard drive for use with it.

You have to manually update the firmware. So I found the file on the forums. Formatted a USB drive to FAT and copied the files over. Plugged it into the popcorn hour, turned it off and back on so it would see it and then update the firmware from that. That fixed the stutter and gave FLAC support and let me format the hard drive.
I was hoping it would format the drive as NTFS. Otherwise why have a hot swap bay? I was hoping I could just dock it with my PC and add movies that way. Nope. It uses the ext3 filesystem.
So I let the popcorn format it.

You have to connect to it's shares to copy movies over your network. It's the only way you are getting content onto it. Unless if you have a linux pc and can just write to a external ext3 formatted drive. It doesn't have gigabit ethernet. So what would have taken an hour or two of transferring movies over took 14 hours.

If you add a bluray drive you can't fit a 3.5" hard drive, you have to use a 2.5" laptop drive which typically are more expensive and smaller capacity. We had a 3.5" drive so some modifications are in order.
The good news is blurays play fine without any hassle. Just drop the disc in and it plays.

The stock remote sucks. It often doesn't register button presses. Or you press it a few times trying to get it to go and the sometime later you get several button presses on the screen. Very irritating. Luckily you have some navigation buttons right on the unit.

The GUI sucks but it works. I would absolutely recommend the YAMJ gui as it looks much better and should be easier to navigate. I didn't install it but there are several steps in the process. Probably not for a novice to do.

The documentation isn't that good and doesn't explain much.

Once setup and with a new GUI and using the optional remote package you can buy from them for $11 it would a great little device. It's just getting there is a pain and time consuming.
 
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I had similar issues but mine is now up and working great. Best source for guidance is Popcorn Hours forum. My unit still has some minor issues now, but nothing that probably will not be corrected through firmware updates soon. Seems we are all beta'ing the C200. Looks promising!
 
I'm using the Harmony 1100 and yes I did get it working. I had to set it up controlling the A110..Logitech should be updating and adding the C200 soon. Any luck with YAMJ?
 
Question about PCH - does it support DVD folder method on network storage? I tend to back up my DVD maintaining folder structure (Video_TS, Audio_TS, etc) instead of making it an ISO or anything like that.

Most Media Center alternatives don't recognize folder method, be it software or hardware.

Very few of my DVD backups are ISO due to the 59gb size spoof of newer releases (Up, Star Trek, etc). Does PCH support ISO backups as well?
 
If I understand your question correctly... Yes it does. It opens the vob files as a whole. I've yet to see a format not supported (to include an iso).
 
I have the A-110 and yes it will play a DVD from an ISO and allow you to navigate by menu. However, I don't believe it works for blu ray, just DVD. Maybe with C-200 you can do this with blu ray. This would be ideal because if I'm going to backup my library I don't really want to remove anything in my backup.

However, I'm happy with my A-110 and I'm seeing they are still selling for like $225 on ebay so I'm going to sell one of the two I have.
 
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