Smart Home Blog

Syabas, well-known producer of networked media tank Popcorn hour, is going to release the media player for non-geek users. Because NMT Popcorn Hour is not easy configure and user friendly device. Also it’s expensive a bit regardless the rich set of offered features. So, the new Popbox is a compact and elegant box with redesigned rich user interface. It still can play all known media files and containers from attached USB storage or network shares (it doesn’t have internal HDD). Popbox support wired connection to the home network as well as WiFi (802.11 b/g/n). Sure the device is fully compatible with HD (720p or 1080p).

Another good advantage of Popbox is access to the online services such Twitter, Revision3, Netflix, SHOUTcast via built-in apps. The number of apps is growing fast. Thanks to available App Development Platform. So, if you’re interested to add new app you can do it easily. Also the Popbox allows to you organize your media library more efficient by retrieving metadata from IMDB for video or AllMusic for audio files.

The Popbox should be available this Spring at just $130! If the price won’t be changed it’ll be probably the best network media player on the market!
See the demo of the Popbox UI after jump
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Syabas released recently a next generation of its networked media tank (NMT) A-200. The A-200 doesn’t have optical drive like C-200, but it has a lot of advantages over old model A-110. It sports faster processor and bigger DRAM and NAND Flash. Additionally the A-200 will have new rich UI, which is more attractive and user friendly then previous one, and ability to install new apps, developed by third-party developers, from App Center. Additionally the A-200 meets EU Green Power Requirement, which will help to reduce energy consumption and save the environment.

The rest spec is more or less the same with A-110. The A-200 still plays everything it find in the internal HDD, USB mass storage, network shares or online services. It looks much better in my mind and its price is very very nice – just $179! If I remember correctly this is less then the price of the A-110 was. So, the A-200 seems good candidate to occupy the space in the AV stand.

Another networked player contains popular HTPC software Boxee. NUU player demonstrated at CES 2010, is based on Atom CPU and probably Intel graphics. It sports 160GB HDD, HDMI, DVI, a few USB and one Ethernet ports. There is no info about WiFi adaptor but the player includes Bluetooth module. So, the wireless headset can be attached there.

Except Boxee, the NUU player offers XBMC and Skype applications. That’s really interesting cause you may no only watch video from sofa but make also Skype calls using Bluetooth headset without standing up.

The price of the NUU player is a bit more expensive then upcoming D-Link Boxee Box – $300 (Boxee Box is just $200). The date of availability is not set yet. The demo video after jump.
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When Boxee announced its own box designed by D-Link I suspected that it should be based on nVidia Ion as a compact and the most reliable to Linux platform. I was wrong but just a little bit. The Boxee Box will use mobile nVidia platform Tegra 2. Together with a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU it should bring 1080p video to your HDTV. Except that Boxee Box will be able playback of flash HD content.

Other hardware components are RF chip by Nordic for remote control and 802.11N wireless chip by Broadcom. The box won’t have internal HDD to decrease its cost, keep it compact and chill. Many people already have USB HDDs or NASes. So, internal hard drive inside the media player is no needed. The boxee box will lack IR receiver. Sure universal remote control is good. But remote with a full QWERTY keyboard is better. In any case, Boxee team promise to add support of IR dongles in the future.

And the finally about the price and availability. Boxee Box from D-Link will be available this March at $200.

A few days ago a SDK for Roku was openned for all developers. It’s available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux to allow programmers use their preferable OS. Using SDK developers can produce their own channels for Roku which will be published in the Channel Store after review and testing.

Roku is cool network player with very reasonable price – $79.99 for SD version, $99.99 for HD and $129.99 for HD + WiFi. But it’s designed to playback online content. As I know currently there is no way to watch stream from local network or from USB mass storage. And this is a big disadvantage for non-US folks. However, I hope those limitations will be fixed with 3rd part extensions developed with Roku SDK. Moreover, maybe it’d be possible use Roku as a client for MythTV or VDR. Will see that.

[via eHomeUpgrade]