PopCorn Hour EM8634 Networked Media Tank Leaked

[Jeremy Charette]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.mpcclub.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=366' target='_blank'>http://www.mpcclub.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=366</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Networked Media Tank (NMT) is a state of the art integrated digital entertainment system that allows you to watch, store, and share digital content on your home network. With a built-in Digital Media Player, the NMT allows for seamless integration between your digital media and your entertainment system. An optional hard disk drive also gives the end user the ability to download content from the Internet and store it in the NMT to watch at their leisure."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/popcornhour.jpg" /><br /><br />The boys over at MPC Club have found some info on an upcoming media player from Popcorn Hour. Spec-wise, looks interesting. BitTorrent, 1080p support, optional NAS...but why not get an Xbox 360? Or one of the upcoming Media Center Extenders? Or an Apple TV? This thing isn't likely to support DRM'd content, so your entertainment choices are going to be limited at best. Even with BitTorrent, how are you supposed to find the content you want to download? Will it support every permutation of Divx, xVid, and h.264 out there? Will it work seamlessly with your networked PCs? Unknown, but unlikely.<br /><br />I say, avoid at all costs.

[jacksmith]

The boys over at MPC Club have found some info on an upcoming media player from Popcorn Hour. Spec-wise, looks interesting. BitTorrent, 1080p support, optional NAS...but why not get an Xbox 360? Or one of the upcoming Media Center Extenders? Or an Apple TV? This thing isn't likely to support DRM'd content, so your entertainment choices are going to be limited at best. Even with BitTorrent, how are you supposed to find the content you want to download? Will it support every permutation of Divx, xVid, and h.264 out there? Will it work seamlessly with your networked PCs? Unknown, but unlikely.

I say, avoid at all costs.

Avoid at all costs? The reasons you have specified seem based largely on assumptions and references to other products without any real argument as to why these devices would be superior.

The cost on this device seems low compared to some other solutions, it supports a wide range of connectivity options and has some extremely handy features.

Personally it's exactly what I'm looking for. The inclusion of a bittorrent client is an exellent bonus and I'm not sure how you are unsure of finding content for bittorrent?

I'm also relatively confident that given the wide and varied versions of codecs available, the manufaturers would be insane if this device was not up to date with the majority.

AppleTV as an alternative doesn't even come close in my mind, and at this point in time I am not interested in buying an Xbox 360 as a media centre. I would envisage that any limitations in this device would no doubt be eclipsed by either of these products.

In addition, you are unsure that this device would seamlessly integrate with the network without providing any reasoning on why. From what I've read on their manual and technical spec it seems that have put a lot of thought into integrating with other devices...

I have been looking for a decent media centre over the last week and most of what I have found has been second rate.

My apologies if the tone of this post is argumentative. I was looking for information and discussion of features, hopefully this will provoke as much.

[Jeremy Charette]

No worries, that's why it's called a discussion. :wink:

I've seen smaller companies like this come and go with so called "Media Center" devices, and they always fail. They are frequently designed to meet a set of bullet points, rather than actual user needs. They also don't take into account the whole entertainment ecosystem.

The nice thing about the Xbox 360 is that it integrates very well with networked Windows PCs, especially Windows Media Center PCs. It also works great with connected storage devices (networked hard drives, USB drives, media players, etc.). It was designed to be part of that ecosystem from Day One. The only shortcomings I see are the lack of support for h.264, Divx, and xVid, though it's rumored that a system update with add these in the very near future.

Am I skeptical? You bet. I've seen nothing to suggest that this player or this company are going to be serious contenders in this space.

So let's pick it apart one by one:

BitTorrent. It's a platform, not a service (though it's becoming a service and attempting to compete under the new CEO). How do you find Torrents? The Pirate Bay, MiniNova, TorrentSpy...how will this box access those indexing services? Probable answer: it won't.

Codec support. There are so many flavors of h.264, Divx, and xVid that it's nearly impossible to keep up. Is the manufacturer going to push out updates to the firmware to incorporate these codec variations? Unlikely.

Price. At $199 USD, it doesn't include a hard drive. Assume the hard drive option adds $100. That's only $50 less than the Xbox 360 Premium system, and right in line with the Apple TV. For that kind of money, I'd rather buy a reliable, proven, well-tested product from a major company. At $99 I might be interested, but at these prices, no way.

I'm not trying to poo-poo this product before it's released, but I just don't see enough evidence to think that it will be even remotely successful. It may serve a small niche of tech-savvy people, but I don't see it growing past that point.