If you've opted to fit a hard drive to the A-100, it can join your home network and you can simply copy files to the disk for playback later. You can also connect to the A-100 via FTP, which might appeal if you want to send files to it from a laptop or even from another machine on the Internet. If you don't fit a hard disk, then by far the best solution for you will be to use USB storage -- either a memory stick or external hard drive.
For a device like this, it's quite important that the user interface is simple and easy to use. Popcorn Hour has done a good job here. When you first turn the machine on you will be presented with a simple screen. From here, you can select to use video, audio or photos. There is also a link to select the media source (USB, hard disk or network device), access the Web services or configure the box.
There are so many features it would be impossible to mention them here, but it would be remiss of us not to mention the A-100s built-in BitTorrent client. To use this system, you simply browse to the Web interface of the device, upload the .torrent file and hit start. The box does the rest.
Performance
Picture quality on the A-100 is superb as long as the file you give it to play is of high quality. Trailers from apple.com looked simply stunning, as did our DVD clips. The best results were from HD material.
Sound quality is great too. Again, the quality will depend on the type of file you are playing, but the A-100 will relay Dolby Digital and DTS out via the optical audio output. If you've got an AV receiver, you'll get full 5.1 surround sound.
If you're planning on using the A-100 for music, you should be aware that the audio codec support isn't as good as the video support. The usual suspects are here, including WMA, MP3, AAC (unprotected) and WAV. After a firmware update, FLAC is supported: boxes bought now should include this feature. No OGG support as yet, sadly.
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gskmr2 12 January 2010
Good: Plays virtually everything!
Bad: When it doesn't it crashes, needing a downpower which will eventually kill the box.
Comment: Mine was running fine for just over a year, when the warranty expired it went wrong after I had to down power it from a frozen movie - no picture on screen and the ethernet light didn't come on.
I sent it back for repair a short while later (costing $50 which is partially expected as it was out of warranty), it came back all working again.... for a few months!
It has gone wrong again after a downpower with a near similar issue and as the warranty repair is only valid for 7 days they wanted me to pay another $50 to have it fixed. I decided to cut my losses and bin it father than have to spend $50 every few months to have the thing fixed as well as having the hassle of posting it back to California and waiting 2 weeks. M6500A DVICO here I come!!
daniel_owen_uk 3 September 2008
Good: Plays everything that I want
Bad: Audio playback isn't that brilliant, FF/RW could be quicker
Comment: Had this product for a LOOOONG time now, was in the first 200 units.
They are constantly updating features (I am in beta group), it plays every video I can find, HD looks incredible.
Support community is great.
Main issue is with speed of moving around video, they have some good tricks (time seek, 1 = 10%, 2 = 20% etc), but i-frames support will make it much quicker. Next 2 months I am promised :)
Really I wouldn't hesitate to recommend though. Bought mine direct, about £100.
Last one to sell on ebay sold for;
£170.00 +£12.50 20-Aug 12:19
Not many electrical products you could sell a year on and make 50%+ profit on.
Tsonaqua 11 July 2008
Good: Video/audio playback via HDMI, mfg support, community support, third party apps.
Bad: Currently not a very good audio playback device, sounds great, functionality as a audio player is lacking ... currently.
Comment: Signed up to correct some misinformation in the CNET review, primarily.
- FLAC has been supported since the January 31, 2008 firmware update.
- Don't use OGG so I can't comment as to whether its currently implemented but if its not it was confirmed as on the way by Syabas (firmware authors I believe) as far back as April 16, 2008.
- The latest firmware patch of June 18, 2008 added wireless via USB dongle in the form of 'Atheros USB 11n driver'.
As far as my 'review', video playback has been amazing, both from installed harddrive or http streaming. Even SMB network (slower speeds) was able to stream HD content from my PC with only the fast forward functionality lagging. That disappears with HTTP streaming.
Straight out of the box the popcorn hour will please most everyone. With a little technical know how and time you can turn it into a Dream. Setting up http streaming takes a little research and technical know how. Also implementing third party apps like 'moviejukebox', my personal favorite third party app, takes a little computer proficiency but once implemented makes the whole popcorn hour experience tops.
WARNING: In its current state the popcorn hour is a poor audio playback device period. By this I mean playback of mp3/FLAC/etc is unintuitive and down right irritating. No support for M3U files at this time which in my mind is inexcusable for a music device. Good thing you're buying this as a video device not a audio streamer. ;)
That being said, the NMT firmware is a work in progress and I suspect that sometime in the future audio playback functionality will be revisited and improved upon. For the time being though, the quality of the audio you do playback is as good as any device I've used.
www.networkmediatank.com is the community site. Check http://www.networkedmediatank.com/viewtopic.php?t=4287&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=452 for an idea of what the current third party apps will do for you.
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