New HD Toy: Popcorn Hour A-200 NMT

To those HD (high definition) media player owners out there, the Popcorn Hour could be a weird name and I was having the same thought too. One thing for sure, this player has yet to disappoint me and I love to play HD movies with it.

The Popcorn Hour A-200 Network Media Tank

Well, I just had mine 2 weeks ago with the assistance of one of the forumers in Low Yat. He has a friend working for SYABAS [http://www.syabas.com/] and managed to get a unit for me with staff price (50% off).

In the box...

Before this, I was having WDTV which is also capable of displaying 1080p full HD videos. My colleague borrowed over one weekend and refused to return it to me (with the intention to purchase it from me). I had no choice but to sell him a little expensive simply because I told him that I need a better player.

Menu list...

Due to some info search from several websites such as [http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/] and [http://www.mpcclub.com/], finally I decided on Popcorn hour due to the fact that it is more than a media player. It is actually a... Network Media Tank!

Full High Definition Video Playback...

Coincidentally, this unit has been highly recommended by the main reviewer of MPC Club and available through my forum friend.

Recommended by MPC Club reviewer...

Glowing remote for theatre mode (dark room)...

Specs and features can be found here...
http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=productspec&item_id=20

Blu-Ray Disc Lite Menu...

Reason for choosing PCH A200 over many other players in the market...
- Latest Sigma 864x based processor with 667MHz of processing power
- Supports BD.iso with BD Lite Menu
- Supports almost all video/audio/HD/image formats
- Compact size for travelling to other places
- Supports 2.5" and 3.5" internal hard drive (I dumped 1TB of 3.5" Samsung drive into it)
- Plenty of webservices provided like CNN, BBC, Picasaweb, Youtube, iPodcast and much more
- capable of bitstreaming Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master audios
- Linux based firmware for stability
- Good firmware support from SYABAS

The screenshots in this post were actually sent to me by the seller during his A-200 testing.

HD Audio bit streaming...

Thanks to the seller and also ZH for allowing me to test the wheel-type menu on the Sony Bravia display.

Wheel-typed main menu...