My Device Forums

Started work on a 1-way driver (the PCH doesn't provide any feedback) for the C200.  Basically it'll emulate the remote control over IP.  One less IRmitter to worry about...

Hi Matt,
          after seeing that you're developing a driver for the Popcorn Hour unit, I had a look at it online. Looks very interesting, to the point that I've ordered one, they don't expect to be shipping until around the 28th of this month (direct from China), so, hopefully early next month I'll be able to see if it works as well as hoped.

Iain

Hi Iain,

Apart from it not providing feedback via IP, i've been very happy with it.  Rock solid media player.

Driver seems to be working well.  Testing will start soon.

Fixed a bug with the ENTER key not being handled correctly.

Matt,
       they've just charged my Visa card (I hope that's a good sign), so the unit should be on it's way, hopefully within a week I'll have it.

Great, be good to get a 2nd opinion on the driver.  I've been using it for the past week in my lounge room and it seems pretty good.

WDTV Live?

I dont really know anything about the Popcorn Hour products, but im assuming it doesnt do Live TV the WDTV Live doesnt either

Nope its for playing media files only.

How have you liked it? I ordered one a week ago and expect it within a week or so. I was hoping it could handle my 720p movie files that the ATV cannot.

Matt, is the C200 capable of metadata and possibly cover art? I know that would be a much bigger undertaking but I was just curious. I'm excited to see you worked on this.

I love my popcorn, for the price I think it's great value.

As for metadata and coverart, there is no documented 2-way interface to query, so the short answer is no.  Who knows if they'll add anything in a future firmware update.

I have a popcorn hour at the moment, however, its really not fulfilling my needs now as Ive upgraded to a 1080p panel.

Some 1080p files stutter or dont play at all on my PCH and the lack of youtube/web browsing is a bit annoying.

How much am I looking at for a HTPC that can play 1080p files and sometimes higher resolutions? I have a harmony remote now, is it possible to get an IR receiver or something similar to use?

I got mine yesterday and just starting to dig into this thing. I bought it to replace my ATV that was not playing my 720P M4V files properly. So far so good! Every thing I've tried has worked. I even did backup a copy of Inception as a .m2ts file (30gb) and that worked great as well. I haven't watched a movie from start to finish but the files I watched look awesome on the C200.

What file format are you using for your movies?

Most computers with a dual or quad core processor would work fine. You simply need a decent video card, a little processor speed, some RAM, and a movie managing software. I don't have any experience with controlling a computer with IR but I would suggest going with a wireless keyboard regardless otherwise it will make surfing the internet and everything else more difficult. I chose PCH for it's simplicity! Now after I've had it for a day I've realize there is a lot more to it than expected.

My next project is learning more about RAID configurations to back all this crap up!

I would love to test this driver out on my A-200.  I have been a PCH user for almost 2 years now.  You guys running the NMJ yet?

I was going to try to read up on it this weekend. From what I read NMJ really slows down the browsing and that makes me nervous. You?

It seems ok for movies but the music seems kinda slow.  I just started using the music jukebox portion.  I used yamj until the NMJ release then switched. 

Hi,

I've been using a C200 for about a year and a half.
The problems i've experienced are failed psu, failed IR port and necessary hard reboots to get sound back, hard reboots to get network operability back.

This is the best media player for streaming i have found, i've tried
tvix 6500A v1
asus playO!
HDi dune prime 3.0
popcorn a110

Even though the C200 has space for extra HDDs I only use it for streaming.
If anyone has problems playing files it will be your network i guarantee.
The only thing the C200 can't do is stream a 3D BD iso.
Apparently thats not likely with the C200 because of hardware limitations, lets hope thats wrong.

On a side note. I use Yanfoe to organise my metadata. Russell is working diligently on v2 which incorporates tv shows. I suggest people check it out. It's a great partner to the C200.


Speed

The C200 has new firmware available, it can play 3D!(half)

How do you get a cover art GUI with Popcorn hour? App? iServer?

There isn't anything on the forum that spells this out clearly. They have a good set up instructions for a lot of things except for the GUI setups. I can watch movies without any issues by browsing the network. But I would rather have a really cool GUI that pulls info from IMDB.

Here's what I got:
C200 with latest firmware and no harddrives internally.
Desktop PC with 1 TB harddrive running Vista.
1 TB NAS backing up the PC.

Any advice? I was going to post on on NMT but I figured it would explained here better.

There are a couple of ways.

Yamj

or NMJ

NMJ has some quirks but once v2 comes out it should be good.

Not sure of your drive structure but, I have a 2TB drive for video and the root of the drive is shared.  Just pick the share and hit RED button NMJ will begin to build its db.  It could take a few hours the first time.  When you want to get back into NMJ just pick the share and hit red button.   Not sure of the order but I think blue is music yellow is photos and green is apps.

Dude, WTF! That was pretty easy! I've pressed the video button before but it wasn't when I was on the network share. I'm sure there are directions somewhere but who has time to read directions!

Thanks

Released this driver today.

Is the driver compatible with the new popbox V8 ??

Didn't even know that existed.  I can see on the popbox.com website a popbox 3d, but where is this V8 version you mentioned?

Do you have a link to the protocol?

If you've got a v8, try the trial version of the driver.

You can look the Popbox V8 on www.popcornhour.de/com

I will test it in the evening.

That link doesn't work for me.  I get this error in both IE and Firefox:

Firefox can't find the server at www.signodistri.eupopcorn-hour-networked-media-tank-p-268.htmlcom.

It seems to be trying to redirect to an address that doesn't exist.  Perhaps because i'm in Australia?

Hmm... Please try this link:

http://www.popcorn-hour.de/index.php?id=5

But the driver works great, even for the buttons that are not on the original remote. The only button that doesn´t wor is the "back / return" button. Maybe you guys can fix this ?

I really like the new Popbox ! So is there anything i can do to help you making the Back/exit button working in the C-200 driver ??

I'm pretty sure it's not implemented in the firmware, don't think there's much anyone can do :(

Does it help you if i learn the original IR-Code and send it to you.

Nope the TCP driver has nothing to do with IR.

Is it possible to pull info from the media.db that NMJ V2 creates?

Not unless that app actually exposes it via a protocol.

The popcorn only provides 1-way control.

Its just a db file that sits on the network share.

So how do I get access to it?  Is there a protocol document that exposes the table?

Or are you suggesting that somehow the XP reads this remote file and directly extracts data from it?

Oh I see nevermind I dont know what I was thinking.

Will the device show as connected if the power toggle is off? 

No, if there is no Ethernet connection the device is considered offline.

I have been using this driver at home for months now with zero issues then suddenly today I can not get it to communicate.  I have messed around in my router recently, but I loaded an older config that I know worked and it still would not connect.

I have an A300, and there has not been a firmware update to the popcorn hour.  I have updated the XP8 to the latest and I cant remember for sure if this is the first time I have tried to use the popcorn hour since or not.  I cant think of anything else that could be the culprit. 

Tried putting the connected/disconnected variable and it doesnt seem to do anything.  The box is blank.  Any ideas?

Haven't seen that happen.  I run 2 C200's here.
Might need to get you to send me some debug logs so I can see what's going on.

You can try telnetting to port 30000 on the popcorn.  If it connects then it's most likely a driver problem.  If it doesn't it's a network or popcorn issue.

I watched a show with OEM remote.  Then tried to watch the next episode but got an error on the popcorn hour.  I rebooted my desktop that acts as the Samba server and it cleared up the streaming problems, and magically fixed the RTI issues.  Not sure what the PC has to do with the comm between xp8 and A300 but it works now.

Had the same issue at home but I just power cycled the C200 and it starting working again. I love the popcorn hour but I have to reset mine once every month or two because the C200 locks up. This was the first time this problem happened.

Hi,

i am new to this forum, but not to RTI:-)

i had a few problems with the popcorndriver too, maybe some of you, or matt, can help:

- i have a A-400, but driver works so far...

- the connected varable is always blank, no feedback
- the return-command seems to have no function
- i can not find the zoom-command at all, am i blind?

for all of you many thanks in advance!

BR
Peter

The driver hasn't been tested against the 400, so I can't comment.
If you send me some debug logs I will be able to tell if it's compatible.