Popcorn Hour VS. DSM-330
While many of us are familiar with the basic specs of these two products, I am sure that there are many who would like to know the advantages/disadvantages each unit has over the other (or other alternative streamers).
Unfortunately, I have yet to come across any user/review articles outlining a direct comparison. While one may compare specs (eg PCH doing 1080p and play-everything functionality), I am interested in the overall usability and functionality of the device - particularly in relation to the average user. With the unit receiving such hype (notably from tech-savvy video enthusiasts), is it really deserving of such accolades?
Below is an excerpt from a user article outlining a list of advantages and disadvantages of the Popcorn Hour which some of you may find interesting:
Pros
* It’s silent (no fan)
* Network support for SMB and NFS shares
* Support for HDMI 1.3 and 1080p (but no Deep Color capability)
* Support for high-bitrate HD content (this is where many other media players fail miserably)
* Ability to insert 3,5″ and 2,5″ S-ATA drives
* Two USB ports to add even more media content on external hard drives
* A real power switch (although the external power supply still eats 7W)
* Disks spin down when not in use to conserve energy
Cons:
* Crude, bare-bone GUI (it really needs some love)
* No resume capability, playback always starts at the beginning
* Buffering from external USB hard drives takes too long compared to XBMC on AppleTV
* Loading a VIDEO_TS folder from an external USB hard drive takes way too long (around 12 seconds, compared to 3 seconds on XBMC on AppleTV)
* Copying is extremely slow! The PCH A-110 transfers data from my WD Passport 2,5″ USB drive at 7 MB/s whereas the same drive on my Notebook transfers 25 MB/s.
* Scrolling with the file browser is a pain in the ***, it takes seconds to jump to the previous/next page. There’s no option to sort entries other than alphabetical (and only ascending). Once there’s a large amount of files or directories it will take ages to find a particular one.
* YouTube and other portal integration loads slow (shows ugly empty rectangles)
* 10/100 Mbps Ethernet is a joke on such a device, a decent 1 Gbps port can’t be that expensive nowadays?! Transferring files over FTP yields in about 6.5 MB/s, SMB 4 MB/s
* Randomly disconnects the FTP connection while transferring large amounts of files to the internal hard drive
* Bulky remote control: Way too many buttons! Look at Apple TV’s remote or the WD TV remote, that’s what I call a useful and simple remote for a media player.
* File browser could be more responsive when switching directories (again, XBMC on AppleTV is fast and instant)
* No ability to jump directly to the DVD menu on ripped DVDs (VIDEO_TS), the movie has to be started first in order to jump to the DVD menu.
* Unfortunately, it doesn’t play Flash video .FLV files (to be fair: it doesn’t advertise to do so)
* Hangs up on many of my MPEG2-TS files from my Dreambox DM800 HD cable tuner. The screen stays black and there’s no audio. Interestingly, it plays all MPEG2-TS files from an older Dreambox DM600 (non-HD) cable tuner.
* There’s no audio (using S/PDIF) when playing .M4V H.264 MPEG4 files with AC3 digital audio. This means I can’t watch any of my ripped and Handbrake-encoded DVDs.
* Doesn’t see any MP3 files with ID-Tags written by iTunes
* Auto-resolution detection mode seems to be broken in current firmware for some HDMI capable displays (display stays blank)
* Gets very hot while playing high-bitrate 1080p HD content from an internal 3,5″ S-ATA hard drive. Some people started to install their own fans.
* No status indicator for new or watched movies
* No ssh or telnet
* The box crashed more than once while I played around with different video formats
Source: http://www.trick77.com/2008/12/30/review-popcorn-hour-a-110-vs-xbmc-appletv/
Finally, if any users have experiences with both the DSM-330 and the Popcorn Hour (or other streamers), their views would be very warmly welcomed by many on this forum.
