| Re: Popcorn Hour A100 Review: Any questions?
W/O a hard drive it is 100% noiseless. With a Hard Drive, you have the noise of the Hard Drive.
Zoom options: original size, fit to screen (will zoom until one dimension meets the output resolution, i.e. fill screen while maintaining aspect ratio), fill screen (regardless of original aspect ratio, zooms to fill entire screen resulting in wide faces on 4:3 content and 16:9 TV).
The Tvix folks have been making Multimedia boxes for years. Poor support, but a good user base. Popcorn Hour wins here, but check out Tivx or Mvix if your curious. If you don't mind asking Steve for permission to watch you media, Apple TV is the best experience by far, but are not diskless (but are quiet). Windows Media Extenders are coming soon (they promise this time), but require vista media center edition to run. Still, a good experience.
I can't recommend anything more highly than the Popcorn hour for video, as long as you are not turned off by the interface, and having to do a little config work. For music, I can't recommend the PH. Go with the Apple TV or Win Media Extender.
Listen to the Real HT Info Podcast at http://realht.info, or on iTunes.
Also, listen right here on The Home Theater Shack. Just use the web applet on the front page. |