Interested in buying an Popcorn Hour A-400 but...

[Divvy]

Hi guys,


My name is Tim and Im unsatisfied with my current Samsung blu-ray disc player BD-D5500. I have too much freezes playing 1080p videos.


Currently I'm watching those in a Samsung SmartTV using PMS (Plex). Playing 1080p is a little better, but for that, I need to remux the file to convert AC3/DTS audio to MP3 to have the file with smaller size. This is very annoying since this process can take about 3-4 hours per file. But the main problem is with 3D movies, I want to stream movie+subtitle with SSA format but is not working, so I have to merge the files and remux all 3D movies that I want to see.


After google for some solutions, I have found many boards where people talks about popcorn hour, never knew that was a media player until I google it.
Since than, I have saw many reviews on youtube and read hundreds of threads in their support forum by their members/clients.


I was thinking in buying C300 or A400, I like better the design of the C300 box, but because of the cinavia issue, I decided to buy the A400 because this model don't have the cinavia protection.
I was almost to pay the product on pixmania (since I'm from portugal and is the only online store that sells it) but I have read lots of interesting things that made me to go back and ask you guys about that to know if this is true.


Main issues that I found people complain:
A-400 network drop issue
Mkv/sub crash after 40 minutes
subtitles issue in the 3D mode
Presentation navigation menu issue
Many support threads without staff replies.


Is true that A-400 model have all this bugs to solve? If yes, is unbelievable that the company has already announcement a new model instead of fixing those important issues in this one first...


About the network drop issue, yes, is a big problem, but since I want to play my files directly from HDD, I can skip these for now, but I like to see this fixed in the next firmware update.
My main problem here is the subtitles issue when I play a 3D movie, because is the main problem that I have now with Plex and the reason I want to by a popcorn hour player is because of that... If this don't work, I will not buy the player, so please, reply me back.


Waiting for your feedbacks, users and staff.


Thank you!

[TreeTops]

I think the popcorn media players are over priced. I bought a WD live Wi-Fi from amazon for $50.00 (refurbished) and have been very happy with it. Maybe the popcorn players do more but not worth the price in my estimation.

[jman98]

Popcorn is made in Europe and they brought out their first models before Western Digital did. So this got Popcorn established in the minds of Europeans as they were the first of the "plays (almost) anything" type media players. Their early models were insanely expensive and when WD and others began to flood the US markets with smaller roughly similar players, Popcorn never caught on in the USA/Canada. So basically this means that the original poster is going to have to wait for someone who actually owns one (probably a European member) to comment on his specific questions.

No other brand that I know of, including WD, lists that it supports 3D BD ISO (Interestingly Popcorn does NOT say that it supports non-3D BD ISO) so there could always be issues there. Man, it's a lot of money to pay to basically gamble that it's going to do what you want with 3D BD ISOs. Good luck.

[Gramps]

Deleted

[netmask56]

Hi Tim, I have a Popcorn C200 for a long time now and continue to be impressed with it's performance. Sure this is an older model and does have a few hiccups that are easy to work around. I've never had any network problems but I have it hard wired via Ethernet rather than WiFi.

There are fairly frequent firmware updates and the place to go for technical help is the Popcorn forum at http://www.networkedmediatank.com/index.php It's an open forum and pretty helpful.

[toriordan]

@ Divvy
Have you consider the Dune HD Smart D1 it is a very impressive media player , its only drawback is that you need to use a 3rd party software such a YaDis etc to have you jukebox interface which can be a deal breaker for some, however in terms of performance its plays everything you throw at it and then some, I have found no issue with sound either ... very solid media player.

In terms of bluray iso it play them no problem get the full menu and everything.
I am not sure about 3D as I never tested 3D, I have no interest in 3D passive or active but I believe Dune does play it at least its site mentions 3D playback. There is a family of Dune products no doubt one of them will play 3D, with regards to price they are not cheap but then again you get what you pay for.
http://www.duneplayer.com/dune-hd-smart-d1.html


here's a discussion link with some opinions on popcorn and Dune.
http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27962

[toriordan]

Tim,


The problem here with 3D is that there is not necessarily an agreed standard, you mentioned Samsung which I believe is active 3D not like the cinema which is passive... Please check out the link below which has a deep discussion on the lack of 3D support (see comments by james-hd).
In short I do not believe its available yet as has already been mentioned and will require the latest chipset and HMDI 1.4 for it to work.

The good news is someone mention that it is possible to looking rip a bluray to 3D mkv for example it has no problem playing it back on Dune D1
Certainly should be easier that what you are doing now for your plex player.

http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-26661.html

ok was just about to post ..stand correct there is a Dune player which will play bluray 3Ds however not the menu it seems

http://www.avforums.com/threads/dune-hd-base-3d-part-2.1758442/page-23#post-19889762

[cornemuse]

Back again.
I am having difficulties finding a replacement for my Argosy player.
I'm trying to find a replacement for an Argosy HV359 media player.

I do not wish to go online with whatever I get. I MAINLY want to watch iso's of movies, (12 T-bytes worth)
I dont want to convert to other type(s) of files to view them. (MKV etc. ie.roku)
The Argosy does 'exactly' what I want with about 1/3rd the buttons on their remote.
I would get another Argosy but that'll never happen, I think. I stopped looking.

I have a WD live smp which I do NOT like, support is a joke,or worse, imho.
I have a Dune TV303 which I like better but still dosent quite get it.
I returned a roku 3 which with lots of issues, turned me off to it before even plugging it in. (no iso support among other things)

The 'popcorn' seems to be closest to what I want, but, I can only find it sold from the Phillipines. Is this so?
Who has one & where did you get it?

(edit) {choice = popcorn a 400 w/int hdd} & {I tried going o/l with the three, found no desire to net surf from the living room!} & {not interested in nas / streaming etc.}

Any input appreciated, thanks, -corne-

[FulciLives]

I think some are asking way too much for a media player and when you can't find one that does what you want then it's time to build a cheap HTPC as that can do everything and anything. Put a cheap AMD A10 chip in it and use the cheapest MB that has decent audio support and be done with it.

[jman98]

Back again.

From WHAT??? I don't see your name in any of the previous posts.

Anyway...
Maybe you should have asked here first. I've got a Roku. Others do too. Nobody claims it's great as a media player. It meets some people's very simple needs, but it's really intended to be a streaming media player from the internet. Anything else it does is just bonus. Yes, it's possible with the use of Plex to stream files from your PC to the Roku, but Plex has plenty of issues of its own such "Oh crap. Why won't it play this file when it played that one fine?".

WD meets some people's needs fine. It does what it does well, namely play most files you throw at it. But if you need support on any player, including WD, you're pretty much screwed unless you can find a forum to ask for help on. That's just how it is.

I don't know exactly where you live, which might be kind of important for you to mention if you really want help, but for many years now you've been able to buy Popcorn devices on Amazon.com. The prices are terrible, as I mentioned in my previous post, but they are sold there, at least by resellers. If Amazon.com doesn't ship to where you live then sorry about that, but you don't give a lot of details and you act like there are no other choices but the Philippines. I can't speak to what Argosy and Dune can and can't do, not being familiar with them at all. And if you don't need 3D ISO support and merely hijacked this thread because it was about Popcorn Hour then this might also be something important to tell.