insomia Posted November 27, 2007 Posted November 27, 2007 Dear All, My A-100 just reached me today... here are some pictures As you can see, the unit is not very big.. what surpirses me is that they give a 3 feet HDMI cable.. :) Hooking up the a-100 is pretty easy, all i need to do its to install MyiHome which is a UPNP AV software supplied by syabas, specify the share folders at MyiHome.. once powering up the a-100, it immediately recongize the folder and add it as one of the source. As i am not intending to install a PATA HDD, i am streaming my video's over my network.. so far these are the format/codec i have tested. 1) mkv (h264 with DTS/DD 720p or 1080p) or VC1 and WVC1 Play very smoothly over network and no jerkness or whatsover is detected so far and since a-100 does not decode the DTS format, i select as RAW passthrough and let my Denon 2105 do the job. My AVR detected that it is DTS and i get nice 5.1 sound. The only problem with MKV files is that subtitles does not display at this moment with syabas is working hard to address the issue. 2) avi/divx/xvid Since i do not have a problem with MKV, my normal AVI plays fine too. If the movie is encoded with AC3, my AVR detects it and show DD at the screen... subtitles is working fine here, with .srt. FWD and RWD works perfectly with a little lag once you try to resume normal mode. The problem i detected so far is that chinese subtitles are not showing... 4) VOB/ISO Plays fine with internal subtitles supported. Although it was reported that DD was not found supported but i did manage to get it 3) mp3/wma Music plays normally.. nothing much to comment
imbest Posted November 27, 2007 Posted November 27, 2007 u know we dun want this kind of pictures ;D come on......lol! just curious, would there be any difference in terms of sound quality between the missing optical out vs spdif that comes with this tiny box?
insomia Posted November 27, 2007 Author Posted November 27, 2007 personally i have always prefer co-axial over optical... my connection via my dvd player to my avr is via co-axial all along.. so i dont find it a major issue.. i am no good with taking pictures in the dark... so no point me posting pictures of my shaky hands.. haha
darkeststar Posted November 28, 2007 Posted November 28, 2007 i am no good with taking pictures in the dark... so no point me posting pictures of my shaky hands.. haha hands shaking..? too excited about your new tou ah..?? ;D
insomia Posted November 28, 2007 Author Posted November 28, 2007 no lah, you know when you take pictures without flash in the dark.. your exp gotta set higher.. and i dont have a tripod.. so my hand will shake mah.. :) of coz i am excited abt my new toy... its been great so far!!
commonjunks Posted November 28, 2007 Posted November 28, 2007 Yo bro, Nice to see your mini review :D. I have ordered mine from nuforce 179 + 50 USD, they told i will receive it some where mid/end DEC. For warranty/service need to send to china :(. I have my LP70+ projector ready but looking for projection screen (will try to get a 100" screen for pleasant view :D).
cn9601 Posted November 28, 2007 Posted November 28, 2007 Hi ew. I am newbie to tis. Conservatively, I will hook up a PC direct to display via VGA, and connect PC spkr out to AVR Audio In. BUT din like the idea bcos of fitting a tower/SFM PC into existing cabinet. As my intention is just to stream video, not necessary to browse Intenet, tis NMT looks promising. It seems that I could stream video wirelessly or USB plug in an external HDD. Hopefully you could enlighten me on the following. 1. Can I just USB plug in a wireless network adapter, eg. Linksys WUSB54G Wireless-G USB Network Adapter, and the NMT can recognise a network shared folder? Similarly, for PnP via Internet, eg. Veoh channels? 2. Can I just USB plug in an external HDD and for it to play AVI (or FLV), MP3 and WMV? Tks. ;)
insomia Posted November 28, 2007 Author Posted November 28, 2007 @cn9601 the a-100 currently does not support wireless adaptor however it has a LAN connection to support network streaming. Just to add, i dont have good experience with wireless streaming of HD content due to the high bitrate and wireless connection isn't all that perfect. Alternatively, you can choose to connect via aztech homeplug if wired lan is pyshically not possible. Right now, the a-100 has several internet channels like youtube, google video, metacafe etc.. even have yahoo weather channel, for more info you can visit www.popcornhour.com Once the a-100 is connected, you can stream via UPNP AV or DLNA server, samba/NFS etc 2) yes, the a-100 support USB host. you can plug any USB thumb drive/ext HDD and it will recongize as a source input. 3) you can also install a PATA hdd to enable more NMT functions, like bittorrent, UPNP AV server etc hope i have provided enough info, i am also newbie too.. :) cheers
insomia Posted November 28, 2007 Author Posted November 28, 2007 Yo bro, Nice to see your mini review :D. I have ordered mine from nuforce 179 + 50 USD, they told i will receive it some where mid/end DEC. For warranty/service need to send to china :(. at least you can the lucky 20 who manage to order from nuforce, they are selling the unit so fast that the factory is coping very hard to meet up the demands... well, its the cheapest and most promising media player by far.. if i am not wrong, we may be the first 10 owner in SG... :)
cn9601 Posted November 28, 2007 Posted November 28, 2007 Hi again, ew. In SG context, besides tis NMT, any alternative? Is it price? Sorie, I would have expected such similar NMT is already available, and so lookin to hoot (or rather recce) one duirng the SITEX.
insomia Posted November 28, 2007 Author Posted November 28, 2007 well, if you look aroud there are many options available.. the more popular media player is Tvix (Dvico) 4100 or 5100 in SIN which many fellow members are using and very happy with it however it does not stream internet content and not using the latest sigma design 863x chip there are others like sarotech, limHD, dlink's .. many out there.. but be careful about firmware support which is vital for mediaplayer.. which many had fail in this area.. cheers
cn9601 Posted November 28, 2007 Posted November 28, 2007 well, if you look aroud there are many options available.. TYVM ;)
spongy Posted November 28, 2007 Posted November 28, 2007 I have also ordered from nuforce after seeing commonjunks posts in hwz. I didn't realise that there are only 20 available as I only saw his message quite late. Anyway, hoping for it to come soon. I couldn't find any specs on the HDD until your review. Is there any reason why you are not putting in a HDD ? I have a QNAP NAS which has act as a Twonky server, so not sure if the A-100 will recognise this as a media server to stream data.
insomia Posted November 28, 2007 Author Posted November 28, 2007 hi spongy, welcome to the popcorn club.. :) i didnt chose to install a HDD due to 2 reason, heat and noise. If you are not bother by that, you can enjoy the full NMT suite of applications available.. :) Yeah, QNAP NAS or any other NAS with DLNA/UPAP AV or Samba/NFS will be recongize by the a-100... pretty simple, it will detect it automatically and add as a source
spongy Posted November 28, 2007 Posted November 28, 2007 What applications are there if I install a HDD ? It is using a PATA HDD, right ? Are there many complains about the noise and heat ? Apologise for posting so many questions. ;D Didn't do much research on it as I was originally looking at the Dvico and then I saw this. The price is the primary reason I choose this over Dvico. ;D
insomia Posted November 28, 2007 Author Posted November 28, 2007 talk about impulse buying.. haha for more info on NMT, you may like to visit www.popcornhour.com all the feature is listed there...
insomia Posted November 28, 2007 Author Posted November 28, 2007 maybe we can start a list of owner/pre-ordered for the a-100? 1) ew 2) commonjunks 3) spongy
commonjunks Posted November 28, 2007 Posted November 28, 2007 maybe we can start a list of owner/pre-ordered for the a-100? 1) ew 2) commonjunks 3) spongy KheKhe. I was thinking to get 750GB drive it cost only 149USD. Still deciding because i have 200GB drive at home, so may be i will buy external NAS 1TB :D. My main reason to install a drive is to let my wife watch drama when i am not around, coz it is trouble-sum to on computer and access shared information. ew which HT are you using? I have Harmon Kardon but that HT is almost dead so thinking to get a new one ;). @spongy as ew mentioned, there are number of feature which require NMT to have HDD inside but i don't think any of us will use all of these features, but in case if i will get mine NMT first then i will test and post my review :D. Very excited.
wwyjoe Posted November 29, 2007 Posted November 29, 2007 new firmware released!! http://www.popcornhour.com/download/01-15-071124-14-POP-402.html
ekardo Posted November 29, 2007 Posted November 29, 2007 how did you guys get this ? how much is the shipping ?
insomia Posted November 29, 2007 Author Posted November 29, 2007 get yourself registered over at www.popcornhour.com shipping is US$45 there is at least 2-3 months back order, so happy waiting..
insomia Posted November 29, 2007 Author Posted November 29, 2007 new firmware released!! http://www.popcornhour.com/download/01-15-071124-14-POP-402.html yeah.. :) i am hoping for the next fw fix which they will address the issue with mkv .subtitles and time search.. with this fix, a number of issue has been resolve especially the samba/nfs client added to the firmware which no longer requires a HDD to run... cool
ekardo Posted November 29, 2007 Posted November 29, 2007 oh....so they do ship to singapore ? but I guess this is the cheapest player around ?? I registered last month, but do we need to place an order??
insomia Posted November 29, 2007 Author Posted November 29, 2007 yes, currently its the cheapest... you will recieve a pre-order email from PH when the time comes...
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