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...

New Car

I have been so buzy lately I can hardly find the time to post nowadays.

Just few days ago, I collected my wife's car from Perodua outlet. It's an Alza car (not MPV, I repeat, not MPV). It is not a luxury car, but good enough for my wife / family to travel around safely as compared to our older cars.

To cut it short, the reason why we chose this car is because:-

- Need not pay so much tax as compared to other brands such as Toyota, Nissan & Honda
- This car is also known as Toyota Passo Sette / Daihatsu Boon Luminas (try google)
- Toyota cars are more reliable in terms of engine performance
- Maintenance should not be high as the parts are the same as Toyota/Daihatsu

Picture taken from: http://paultan.org/photo/albums/toyota-passo-sette/toyota-passo-sette-12.jpg

The picture above is only a sample to depict roughly how Alza looks like. I have yet find the time to take pics of the car, LOL.

Ours is the Premium unit and it comes with:-
- Blue Optitron meter
- ABS with EBD and Brake Assist
- Dual SRS Air Bags
- Twin Cam fuel injected engine with Valve Timing technology (same engine model as Toyota Rush)
- and etc... (check out Perodua's site or click on this post's title)

Even though Alza's engine is the same as Toyota Rush, Perodua has actually de-tune the engine by several horsepower in order for the engine to be more reliable on RON 95 petrol. This is quite strange, but as long as it is for the purpose of extending the reliability, why not? :)

This car was chosen over Kia Forte mainly because of the resale value of Kia cars @ Malaysia. We got the car pretty fast as my dad's friend is the sales man. Very reliable person and whoever wants to get Proton / Perodua without much hassle, just contact me. :)

First medium distance drive...review
I had the first drive... back to hometown on Friday 30th Apr 2010. Mileage is below 1000km and surprisingly, the car manage to clock 7.2 litre / 100km fuel consumption(FC). Average speed on the highway was around 90km/h (cannot rev hard below 1000km mark). Weight load on the car is equivalent to 3 adults and each wheel is on 31psi pressure. I didnt expect the FC to be lower than 10 litre / 100km. I am quite happy with wife's new car. :D