Smart Home Blog

Four months ago I wrote about network player Popcorn Hour A-100. It’s amazing device. Just for $170 you get media player which can play-back all well-known audio/video files from different sources such networked PC or USB stick. Moreover it works as NAS and Torrent client. Now it’s time for the next generation of Popcorn Hour - A-110. Additionally to A-100 features it adds support of 2.5″/3.5″ SATA HDD, USB slave functionality to improve connectivity and transfer rates and HDMI output upgrade to the 1.3a spec, allowing full support of HD Audio pass-through for DTS HD-HR, DTS HD-MA, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD.

The ports were re-organize a bit - USB was moved to the rear panel and co-axial S/PDIF output was replaced by optical one. Also it was added a hardware reset button to bring back hung device.

The newest Popcorn Hour A-110 is available for pre-order for $215.00.

If you’re not satisfy Popcorn Hour design (which looks nice for me) or you’d like to embed it somewhere you can buy the Popcorn Hour B-110 Baseline. So, you’ll able to build your own device.

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Iomega presented its new media product ScreenPlay HD. That multimedia drive is equiped with cost effective 500Gb HDD, HDMI port and component / composite connections and Coaxial S/PDIF output and USB 2.0 interface. ScreenPlay HD can handle most formats from MPEG-1 to MPEG-2 (AVI/VOB) and MPEG-4 (DivX3-5/XviD). Thanks to HDMI interface SD video will be upscaled to 720p or 1080i digitally. To comfort work with the ScreenPlay HD it comes with slim remote control.

The ScreenPlay HD is available on the Iomega site at $218.45.

[via Everything USB]

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Simplify Media released a new version of its software for mobile devices. That version includes following new features: using Amazon Web Service to search album art, getting artist bios from last.fm and lyrics from lyrics wiki, select Shuffle from the top of any song list, and the tracks from an album, a genre, an artist or a playlist will be randomized for your enjoyment.

Note that build 949 of Simplify Media Mobile is a recommended update for all iPhone and iPod Touch users with firmware 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3 and 1.1.4. Enjoy!

[via SimplifyMedia weblog]

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Recently I wrote about Myka - small box with allows to download media content from BitTorrent or local server and playback it directly on TV. Here is a similar device named Popcorn Hour A-100. It supports wide range of audio/video formats and connectivity ways including BitTorrent, UPnP, Samba, NFS and FTP. Additionally it offers watching of YouTube and Google Video clips, photos from Flickr and Picasa, peer-to-peer TV SayaTV and listen internet radio. The Popcorn Hour has HDMI v1.1 (up to 1080p), Component Video (up to 1080p), S-Video, Composite Video, Stereo Analog Audio, S/PDIF Coax Digital Audio and 2 USB ports. Also it can be equiped by PATA HDD to store media content. It’s a compact (270×132x32 mm) and stylish. So, you can place it near or behind TV and enjoy rich media player.

The Popcorn Hour A-100 is tagged just at $179.00 (without HDD). But it isn’t available at present time on the producer’s online store. However, one friend of mine recently bought it. So, we’ll see that box in action soon and confirm or refute its advantages.

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Sqeezebox together with SlimServer is the easiest way to create a multiroom music system. Now with plug-in mceSoftsqueeze it’s possible to use Windows MCE as a Softsqueeze - software emulator of real Sqeezebox. It logs into SlimServer (preferably installed on a separate networked PC) and can be managed directly from your Media Center’s 10-foot interface and remote in your entertainment area.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

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