Today we get our grubby little hands on the Media Player coined “Networked Media Tank”; this is the Popcorn Hour A-110. While its name recognition is not that of Apple, it does imply that it’s time to sit and enjoy some theater.
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When it comes to watching HD Video on your Plasma / LCD Tele, there is a plethora choices. You can use your Cable / FiOS / DirecTV box, TiVO, HTPC, AppleTV as well as a several Media Players that are currently out there.
While we won’t tell you we are a high end Media based site, we have done our share of dabbling with the gear. Most of us, in one way, shape or form, have built an HTPC or used a Media Player, be it Windows based as Scott prefers, or Linux based as I tend to lean towards. No matter the solution, there is always a catch, something that just doesn’t work right or play properly, could we be starting an era where things just work? The A-110 is a Media Player that’s compact, silent and plays damn near everything but the kitchen sink, lets see if it fits the bill… |
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The packaging of the PCH A-110 is done very nicely. Opening the box I was expecting something a little, well, more substantial, this thing is barely larger then a 3.5” USB Disk Enclosure.
Included with the PCH A-110 is a very nice shielded HDMI 1.3a compliant cable, a USB Slave cable, mounting screws for a 2.5” or 3.5” internal SATA drive, a remote and batteries for said remote.
Let’s take a look at what this thing can do…
Connectivity
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Bonjour
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Apples Service Discovery Protocol (installed with iTunes)
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UPnP SSDP
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Simple Service Discover Protocol (Windows Variants, IETF Expired draft)
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UPnP AV
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Audio Video (A standard for Media Servers)
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Windows Media Connect
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UPnP AV Server, renamed to HME (Home Media Ecosystem)
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Windows Media Player NSS
- Network Sharing Service
- SMB / CIFS / NFS
- HTTP servers: , , , MSP Portal, ,
- Bit Torrent P2P
- NAS access : SMB, NFS, FTP
WebServices
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Video : YouTube, Veoh, Videocast, DLTV, Cranky Geeks, Bliptv, PodfinderUK, Vuze, Break Podcast, Revision 3, CNN The Larry King Podcast, CNN Anderson Cooper 360, The CNN Daily, CNN In Case You Missed It , NBC Meet The Press, NBC Today, CBS Face the Nation, NBC Nightly News, Mevio
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Audio : Live365 Radio, iPodcast, Radiobox, ABC News, BBC Podcast, CNN News , Indiefeed, Jamendo
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Photo : Flickr, Picasaweb
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RSS feed : Bloglines, Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo Traffic Alerts, Traffic Condition, Cinecast, Yahoo! News, MSNBC News
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Peer-to-peer TV : SayaTV
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Internet Radio : Shoutcast
MediaFiles Supported
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Video containers:
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MPEG1/2/4 Elementary (M1V, M2V, M4V)
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MPEG1/2 PS (M2P, MPG)
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MPEG2 Transport Stream (TS, TP, TRP, M2T, M2TS, MTS)
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VOB
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AVI, ASF, WMV
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Matroska (MKV)
- MOV (H.264), MP4, RMP4
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Video codecs:
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XVID SD/HD
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MPEG-1
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MPEG-2
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MP@HL
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MPEG-4.2
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ASP@L5, 720p, 1-point GMC
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WMV9
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MP@HL
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H.264
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BP@L3
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MP@L4.0
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HP@L4.0
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HP@L4.1
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VC-1
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MP@HL
- AP@L3
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Audio containers:
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AAC, M4A
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MPEG audio (MP1, MP2, MP3, MPA)
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WAV
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WMA
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FLAC
- OGG
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Audio codecs:
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Dolby Digital
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DTS
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WMA, WMA Pro
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AAC
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MP1, MP2, MP3
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LPCM
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FLAC
- Vorbis
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Audio pass through : DTS, Dolby Digital, DTS-HD MA, DTS-HD HR, Dolby True HD, Dolby Digital Plus
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Photo formats : JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF
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Other formats: ISO, IFO
- Subtitle formats : SRT, SMI, SUB, SSA
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DRM:
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Cardea DRM (WMDRM-ND)
As you can see, the Popcorn hour A-110 Network Media Tank aims to please. There is support for most Video / Audio containers and Codecs currently out. Of note, while you can find an “iTunesServer” on your local network, the PCH A-110 does not play DRM’d AAC audio, not that many things outside of iTunes and iPod’s can. Popcorn Hour also releases firmware updates to help keep abreast of current trends.
Powering the NMT A-110 is the Sigma Designs Chip. A fairly popular chip in the Media Player space, at least if you want your Media Player to pump out 1080p Video. Let’s take a look at whats in and around the PCH A-110.
The front of the PH A-110 sports a single USB port and a reset button. From this USB you are able to mount an External Drive (and yes, the PH A-110 is Linux based, so you will be mounting drives) or USB FlashDisk that stores media, be it Audio or Video.
Turning the unit around we see most of what connects the PH A-110, from left to right starting with of course the On/Off switch, then Component Video (1080p capable), S-Video, Composite Video, an Audio section that includes Left/Right channel as well as TOSLink, HDMI (Ver 1.3a), USB Slave (allows you to connect the internal drive as an external USB drive on another PC), another USB port, 10/100 Ethernet (nope, no GB here) and finally the external Power input. For a small device,there is a plethora of inputs. The only thing I can see missing is the lack of GB Ethernet, outside of that, I can see nothing else required here.
Opening up the PH A-110 is as simple as removing 4 thumb screws. Once in you can see the mounting holes for the 2.5” or 3.5” drive. Inside the unit is minimalistic, there is more air in this thing then anything else!!!
Here it is with a drive inserted, notice that there is not even the need for a SATA cable.
Closing her back up and powering on the PH A-110 and changing the input of my LCD to HDMI nets the start page. While the interface is not as dynamic or pleasing as Myth, Meedio or LinuxMCE, its serves its purpose with simplicity. I have several friends that run a PS2, PS3, Xbox or HTPC; even I have an HTPC currently running and while I enjoy seeing the cover art to a show what I am about to watch, it is not a necessity in order to enjoy the experience.
Navigating through the interface is logical and for the most part, self explanatory. Just to be clear, I tested the PH-A110 on 2 different LCD’s. The first test was on my Toshiba Regza Series 42”1080i/720p. This was followed by testing on my KDS K-24mdwb, which has a maximum resolution of 1920×1200. I did initially setup the Video to 1080p by mistake on my Toshiba (this LCD is only 1080i /720p) and had to use the reset button 
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Here I have setup a network share that does an auto login and allows me to quickly browse content. I had previously setup OTA HD capture on my HTPC and shared out that folder, I quickly browsed to it and played back the captured video using the PH A-110. This worked as simply as playing it back directly from the HTPC. I have read in the that several people have even setup a share for their downloaded Netflix files and played that back using the PH A-110.
A quick snapshot of where you setup web services that might be available, either in your own network or externally reachable.
While Maintenance is stretching this menus ability, it is simply a firmware update page. Obviously informational as well as easy to navigate.
To truly test the PH-A110 out we have a standard set of Video’s that force the system to perform in different areas. You can download these from the links provided to see how well your system performs comparatively. First up is (Elephants Dream in HD), this is an MPEG4 / AC3 5.1 stream. Very taxing on a mainstream PC, much less a stand alone media player. Next is nVidia’s little program . This is a very small video that is great for testing de-interlacing. Next we move onto Final Fantasy XIII for , this is another MPEG4 but not up to the same frame rate as ElephantsDream however. Finally we have some HD WMV files from MS, you can find many , we decided to use the following two, The Magic of Flight and Step Into Liquid.
Everything outside of the Elephants Dream and FF XIII trailer played flawlessly. FF XIII played just fine after about 1-2 seconds of stutter, it was smooth, clear and pleasing once past the initial issue. Elephants Dream only played audio, I was unable to get a picture; initially I thought this very well could be due to the fact that interface is only 10/100 and Elephants Dream is at a 40mb/S rate, thats pushing the extreme on 100mb Ethernet to say the least. However, moving the video to a slave USB drive netted the same result. Playback of both of these videos on my PC did not go without issue either. I did not have the proper Audio CODEC for either video, which I had to research and download in order to playback. Granted the PC I played these back on is a Xeon 3050, 4GB DDR2 and a HIS 3850 Graphics card, just a slight bit more power then the Sigma SMP8635.
Final Words
Brook’s 2 Cents
If you want the full theater experience with the bells and whistles, the flashy screens and pretty menus, then the A-110Networked Media Tank is not for you. If you however are a minimalist, this could very well be your media enclosure of choice. I must say for me, the fact that it plays nearly everything I have thrown at it (without downloading CODEC’s left and right), it is dead silent and the footprint is that of a 3.5” HD Enclosure, all make me very excited that a solution such as the A-110 exists.
As to can it be improved upon, absolutely, a GB interface would be my first point of focus. Only time will tell if firmware updates will allow even greater flexibility, maybe even a direct link with Netflix for content???
Scott’s 2 Cents
I’ve tried MCE, XBMC (Windows), Boxee (Ubuntu), Media Portal, iMON’s iMEDIAN HD and Meedio (my current favourite) along with various combinations of players and codecs to try and get the best from my system. Obviously, the A-110 is not aimed at me … but I have to say, hearing Brook tell me what it can and can’t (very little) do that I can see the beauty of this product. There is also a good community behind it which for a standalone device such as this I wasn’t expecting, but I find absolutely essential to a good media player product of any type. I’ve seen a couple of 3rd party ‘plugins’ around the web for the A-110 and I have to admit, I too am interested despite my love of the HTPC.
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