# Popcorn Hour A-110 Network Media Tank



## bobgpsr

I got one of these finally hooked up today (It was shipped Sept 28th). Used component video 1080i to a 2003 RCA Scenium 34" CRT direct view TV and optical Toslink 5.1 digital audio to my Yamaha RX-V2500 AVR. The A-110 does have HDMI 1.3a and is supposed to be able to do up to date things like 1080p24 video plus TrueHD & dts-HD MA bitstream audio to those lucky enough to have the right type of display and AVR.

After getting the video and audio connected, I used an ethernet cable to connect it to an unused port on my router. At power-on the A-110 found my nearby family room computer on its own. It was a simple matter to use the included IR remote control to navigate to a 1080i captured TV show (Masterpiece Theater from over the air PBS HDTV station) on the computer's hard drive. The captured show was in a folder previously set up to be a network share.

I later set the A-110 to have another computer's network share folders to be readily available. This lets the two desktop computers in the house do the job of capturing video from OTA ATSC stations or digital cable unencrypted QAM channels using attached TV tuner cards. The computer closest to the RCA TV only has built into the motherboard VGA video and would have required a add-on video card to drive the TV display. I choose to keep that family room computer very simple, cool, and quiet without having to add more fans, etc.

Marshall's (eugovector) review of the earlier Popcorn Hour model A-100 applies to this model also. Things changed like the internal HDD optional expansion (added by user -- up to 1 TB) from IDE to SATA and the HDMI from 1.1 to 1.3a. It plays ripped DVD's as either ifo/vob folder files or as an iso file. HD DVD or Blu-ray rips require a bit of re-authoring and re-muxing to get them to play, given the user has something like AnyDVD HD.

The A-110 can also directly browse and stream YouTube, c/net, etc directly off of the internet.

Very pleased!


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## eugovector

If Hulu or Netflix Instant Watching interest you, you should try out MediaMall's PlayOn DLNA server. It'll bring those and more to the Popcorn Hour.


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## bobgpsr

FYI new firmware for the older A-100 model is out. So the update for the A-110 is due shortly.

It adds the Resume feature.


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## dh2005

Cool. Thanks for letting us know.


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## bobgpsr

The new firmware for the A-110 is finally out. I am trying to have my A-110 load it right now.
-------------------------------


> Firmware Notification - A110/B110 ONLY
> Release Date : 26 February 2009
> Firmware Version : 01-17-090125-15-POP-403-000
> 
> Release Date : 26 February 2009
> Firmware Version : 01-17-090125-15-POP-403-000
> Note :
> 1. Requires NMT apps 00-17-090115-15-POP-403
> 2. Browser / System
> - Improvement on font engine character rendering (30% speed up)
> - faster navigation on local drives
> - Use numeric key to input item number to jump to the page where item is located
> - Improved fileplayer speed
> - Hebrew translation added
> - Fixed HDMI display output blackout issue for auto EDID
> - Discrete RC (Logitech) scancode fix
> - Updated network share and webservices language packs.
> - Removed EXT2 option for NMT installation
> - Note: due to long term reliability issue with EXT2 on device that is frequently turned off abruptly
> - Additional symbols can be input from "1" key
> - HTTP download manager (only works with links with special "download" attributes.
> - File player hide Recycle Bin folder
> - Fixed 'TV MODE' + '3' key handling bug
> - Fixed recovery kernel no red screen displayed
> - Browser image caching fix, should fix some YAMJ crashes or no image issue.
> - Fixed HDD spin-up during standby
> - Fixed slow loading of HTML pages
> 3. Web Services
> - New UI
> - customizable icon feature with browse image utility (need NMT apps)
> - bug fixes on customizable service icon with browse feature.
> - Web Services page modification
> - Fixed a "save/remove service" bug
> - Now able to customise JPG/BMP icon
> - Fixed slow IR response while playback Internet Radio
> - Immediate response to STOP during Internet video streaming
> - Fine-tune Web Service UI
> 4. Network
> - Improved SMB server startup time
> - Improved browsing time for SMB client
> - Atheros USB WiFi stability fixes
> - Fixed SMB client hostname resolution picked up wrong IP address from the IP list
> - Fixed file copy failed from HDD to SMB/NFS with names containing whitespace
> - Fixed UPnP AV server playall issue broken in previous release
> - Fixed Samba server halts after device name change
> - Torrent client is now by default Transmission (btpd removed)
> **** IMPORTANT NOTE: Please ensure completion with previous downloads with BTPD, as new Transmission client cannot inherit previous downloads.
> - Fixed torrent schedule page not working
> - Fixed occasionally newly created SMB/NFS shares doesn't show up in media source list
> - Atheros USB WiFi added support for TP-Link v2 stick
> - Fixed persistent private IP when DHCP server unavailable (e.g. cross-cable connection etc)
> 5. Playback
> - Bookmark/resume for single playback
> - 10 bookmarks available now
> - Press stop to bookmark the last video playback
> - Press enter / play with focus on bookmarked clip to resume
> - Press "0" to start from beginning of clip
> - Auto framerate synchronisation
> - Framerate sync function in ISO playback, only for 50,60Hz modes (PAL/NTSC)
> - switch to NTSC(60Hz) when selected mode not applicable.(previously, it will follow TV mode selected)
> - Use 59.94 for NTSC when matching content detected.
> - Fixed incorrect data shown on infobar.
> - Fixed after ISO playback, screen goes blank when framerate sync kicks in
> - Improved info display
> - Disable incorrect video MPEG1/2 VBR display.
> - Fixed incorrect framerate info for video playback (*.mov, *.mp4).
> - Fixed video bitrate calculation error (less 1 packet every second)
> - Modified infobar UI (height, spacing and text displayed)
> - Fixed info bar losing text after paused
> - Improved accuracy of mpeg1/2 bitrate information
> - Photo app
> - Fixed JPEG (PNG / TIFF transcode) from myiHome server cannot be displayed
> - Fade-In Fade-out effect added for photo transition
> - Enable large jpeg rotation. (downscale before rotate)
> - Fixed faded color for jpeg at 360-deg rotation
> - TV Type setting for DVD playback
> - the TV type setting is now working for DVD video playback (4:3 and 16:9 only, 16:10 will treat as 16:9)
> - DVD Menu
> - new popup menu if MENU key on PCH remote controller is pressed
> - user can select to jump to ROOT, TITLE, CHAPTER.... etc from the menu
> - Modified progressive zoom and pan in ISO/IFO playback
> - Removed up/down keys as prev/next track/td>
> - VCD *.DAT playback fixed using soft demux
> - Fixed "repeat" keypress in myiHome when playback audio caused picture playback to halt
> - Improved handling of MKV H.264 profile and vlevel.
> - Fixed cannot stream MPEG from UPnP AV server, liveTV
> - Fixed .pls file unable to start when playback locally (HDD/SMB/NFS)
> - *.m3u playlist supported.
> - Fixed TS with stream6 as teletext playback cause out of memoryFixed MKV H264 L4.1 pixelated video issue
> - Fixed MKV H264 L4.1 pixelated video issue
> - Fixed ISO over SMB stutter issue, when no HDD attached
> 6. Subtitle
> - Fixed Hebrew SRT subtitle containing invalid character
> - Fixed subtitle parsing with BOM (UTF8 support only)
> - Thai subtitle support
> - Fixed wrong character rendered in Thai subtitle
> - Changed default subtitle font size to 28 and Y offset to 10
> - Exception handling in SSA subtitle parsing
> - Slight adjustment of subtitle position
> 
> NMT Apps Version : 00-17-090115-15-POP-403
> Release Note :
> 1.Minimum firmware version to use this NMT App is 00-17-090116-15-POP-403
> 2. Improved on samba client browsing time and server boot up time
> 3. Fixed occasional slow samba response
> 4. Upgraded to nzbget 0.51
> 5. Upgraded to nzbgetweb 1.2 (Categories can be modifed in /mnt/syb8634/nzbgetweb/setting.php5)
> 6. Various Casgle fixes
> 7. Fixed FTP password saving
> 8. Improved Setup Page loading time
> 9. Remove btpd, using Transmission as default BT client
> 10. Fixed sometimes unable to access casgle web ui
> 11. Fixed HDD spin-up during standby


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## dh2005

I've been running it for a day or two. Much improved.


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## bobgpsr

I seem to have gotten an improvement in playing a very high bitrate AVC movie. I was having jerky playback & loss of lipsync issues with The Duchess (Blu-ray version). With the new 01-17-090125-15-POP-403-000 firmware I no longer have this problem.

My A-110 has no internal drive in it -- I just use the wired 100 MHz ethernet network access to the drives in my two home PC's.


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## Blaser

I ordered the A-110 and it should ship from Scotland tomorrow to be here by the end of the week :jump:
Thanks DH for showing me where to buy...:T

I'll start with the biggest hard it can accept, I really hope 1 Tb's not the limit, but no problem if it is...
Unfortunately all I know about it is it will store my movies and use a Jukebox to arrange them...But I have no idea what is MediaMall's PlayOn DLNA server for ex.... I hope Marshall / DH / Bob can help me get the max out of it...

I believe it's a good addition to my HT, although it cost me around 213 B Pounds + taxes. Can't wait !!


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## dh2005

I've previously run a 1.5TB drive inside of mine, and I'm told that 2TB drives work also.


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## eugovector

If you're outside the US, you shouldn't worry about Playon. The services it interfaces with, netflix, hulu, CBS, are blocked to international IP addresses. Unless you run your internet connection through a US proxy, I don't think you'll have any luck.

Enjoy!


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## Blaser

OK! that's not a problem, I even don't know what I am missing to be honest! I just want as a media server!


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