PopBox Wireless Media Player

Manufacturer : Syabas Tech. Incorporated Model : Syabas popbox Wireless ASIN : B003BYRQO0 Price : 149.99$ See Special Offers Product Description The PopBox Wireless makes it simple and affordable to play all the movies, home videos, photos, and music stored on your home PC/network as well as streamed from the Internet on your HDTV! With PopBox Wireless you can finally give your HDTV what its been hungering for - all the best sports, entertainment, movies, videos, and music the Internet has to offer, PLUS an incredibly simple way to play all of your own stored movies, home videos, pictures and music on your HDTV sets and home theater system. Why watch things that were meant for the big screen on a computer monitor when you and your family can enjoy it all in any room of your house on your HDTV? With PopBox connected to your HDTV suddenly everything can go big screen! And we've made sure to make setup automated and simple - just hook the PopBox Wireless up to your Internet connection and it does the rest! Most Helpful Customer Reviews 12 of 13 people found the following review helpful: Wow this is so not ready yet! This review is from: PopBox Wireless Media Player (Electronics) Waiting a day and a half for my movies to populate after the last firmware I realize it's not going to happen. Everything was going ok there for a while...now it's useless for me. I think I gave it my best like many others on the forums but it's not worth the effort. I even hooked my WDTVs up just to see if it was something weird with my network but everything was ok with them. I remember the excitement I had putting in my pre-orders on April 30th. It's been a long wait and honestly I do think it will all get sorted...problem is I am ready now. 50+ posts & 42 pages later... It's been fun! I'll probably delete my 4 star review on Amazon as well. I think no review is better than an honest review at this point. Here is my original review posted on Amazon. You can see it started out ok. Friday July 16th 2010 So far so good. I love the way it pulls info from IMDB Yes there are many issues right out of the box. So if you are expecting a hassle fee experience it may be too early at this point. Popbox has already confirmed firmware updates in the next few days. So I have been messing with the 2 Popboxes over the last 24+ hours now. So far so good. I will keep adding to my review as I learn more. But right now I am giving it 4 stars as its doing everything I want it to do. Make sure you read the instructions and insert the included SD card before powering up. I have about 4 tb worth of HD movies all saved as .mkv and I simply added it to the Media Library in the settings and it started to scan the My Book World Edition II. Now the movies are showing up along with cover art all fetched from IMDB. IMDB also determines which are TV shows and will displays those in the right category. Some covers are wrong and you can edit them by searching for the right cover and selecting it. I am streaming 1080p movies with no issues at all. It found my network asked for my key and that was really it. I used to have the exact same setup but with an WDTV live and I would get drop outs constantly. I actually had to change it to wired to keep the connection. Both my router and wireless adapter used were in the accepted list by WD. Shoutcast app does not seem to be working correctly as it keeps resetting the box. But YouTube works along with Twitter and Weatherbug. I do notice my Pioneer VSX-1018AH is no longer displaying DTS and now displays PCM. It used to display DTS with the WDTV Live. I really like it. Overall it looks ok...nothing that blows me away but I do like the way the movies are displayed. Oh yeah there are no instructions besides the quick setup guide. No forum or real support either at this time. Many are complaining on Amazon about their wired versions too. There are no ads as some reported before this thing actually came out. Things I don't like: Some subtitles load up and some don't. Not sure how to actually trigger the subtitle feature yet since there is no subtitle button. Only 2x and 4x search. You can't skip in larger times. There is also no resume. So if you hit stop an hour into the movie its gonna take a while to get to that same spot. So far I have watched 3 movies @ 1080p wireless and all played fine. They do have a lot to work out on this. I am sure many of you can't figure out why I gave it 4 stars since there are so many things wrong...but I am perfectly happy with what it is doing at this time. I also have the patients to wait for the upcoming firmwares. At this point it does feel like I am beta testing. That is cool with me..but I can't see myself doing this longer than 30 days...at that point I will return if not fully functional. UPDATED 7/18/2010 popboxteam: We will be providing multiple firmware releases over the next 2-3 weeks to address the issues reported. The first one (v1.1) will be available on Tue (07/20) afternoon. Some of the fixes in this version will be: * Settings to enable DTS and Dolby Digital * 6x and 8x support for FF/REW * Playback resumes from where it stopped the last time * After exiting a movie, the focus frame is not present and always returns to first movie in library * Media Library fixes for navigation and scrolling in TV category This release will also have a number of other stability fixes not listed above. Once again appreciate your patience and feedback as we work through these issues. Subtitles are not supported in this release. They will be supported in a future release. The formats supported will be: SRT, MicroDVD SUB, SSA, SUB/IDX UPDATED 7/19/10 There are a few users on the AVSForum board that are having a glitch where it is showing a completely different UI with many more features enabled: Capable of sending Dolby TrueHD and DTS-MA bitstream as well as DTS and DD Plus mentions of Netflix: w w w .youtube. com/watch?v=F_hIJpncU4o UPDATED 7/20/10 New Firmware released. Well first thing I tried was FF and it now goes to 2x 4x 8x 16x Sounds good right? Wrong... sure the time increases in fact I was FF to about 10:00 into the movie and noticed the video was not moving that fast. I press play again..or stop..or pause..not sure cause it would not respond well. I got it to play and it was back at 2:35 ! My receiver is now showing DTS. There is now an option for PCM and RAW. I can no longer access that hidden UI.... Movies do not resume I can now access page 2 of TV shows. UPDATED 7/21/10 Here is the list that is going around and collected from the various forums: - Audio: No bitstreaming for DTS-HD MA and TrueHD - Audio: Center channel missing during video playback. Completely random for me - UI: Yes they have their own genres like movies, tv shows but it's all pulled automatically - UI: TV scraping is still horrible - UI: Only lists 8 movies per page. You will see the `loading' icon constantly - UI: Focus is not so good. You really notice it with pop ups when the focus goes back to the main screen behind the pop up ! - Design: This thing gets HOT - Design: Power cable sticks out and is not properly seated - Design: No reset button or power button that actually turns it off. Using the power button puts it into standby mode - Playback: No subtitle button! - Playback: No Audio selection button! - Playback: Info button is bad. There are no indications on how fast you are seeking until you hit the `i' button. Then you have too much information including movie descriptions! Who wants to see that while you are FF or RW - Playback: No resume. You stop it and you have to start over again. That is not easy especially since seeking just sucks - Playback: FF is now up to 16x but when I FF on some movies it indicates for example 10 minutes into the movie but when I press play it actually goes back to say 2:50 There are others but man I am done. You think I am exaggerating ??? Then feel free to check these 2 forums out: avsforum forum.popbox I have never dealt with any electronic device with so many issues right from the start. I can't imagine anyone tested this thing out before it was shipped...In fact it was sent out a few days before the actual release date. Do I think they will fix it...Yes... eventually. I just wish I had the last 5 days of my life back. [...] 6 of 7 people found the following review helpful: Over-hyped Disappointment    This review is from: PopBox Wireless Media Player (Electronics) I've been craving something to natively challenge the XBMC and Boxee scene and this device was promised to be such a contender. Unfortunately, amongst delays and near silence from the manufacturer when finally shipped this machine does not match up. UI: I actually prefer the simple, folder-based navigation of my A-100 and A-110 to this archaic system that Syabas has put into place for the popbox. Not only is it overall slower than the aforementioned older models, it somehow manages to be less useful. Yes seeing the cover art (when found) is nice but the delay between paging is about two and a half to three seconds and the buttons do not repeat so you must continually press down. The keyboard layout is a mess, why isn't the on-screen QWERTY? It would be a lot faster. The TV organization is a joke and I didn't even attempt beyond a few minutes, I'll stick to the folder browsing where my manual organization is much more efficient. Nowhere can you see the full filename of an item so if identified wrong you have to play it in order to figure out what it is. If you have two versions of the same movie they are indistinguishable unless you manually alter the title. The in-movie UI is a step down from the older models. I cannot see the filename, codecs, bitrate, or even the actual movie length! Playback: Lovely. Once you survive the UI in navigating to the file you desire playback is a welcome relief. No longer will your TV lose signal in switching modes but only go black momentarily while the cache builds up and playback starts. Every major codec is supported in both the audio and video sector. I didn't have a chance to test any of the exotic subtitle formats as all mine were targeted for the earlier models anyways. I'm slightly disappointed that I cannot cycle subtitles or change the aspect ratio during playback as I used to be able to. Hardware: Again, lovely. Small and crisp the device is a little larger than expected but is still very small. The black is a welcome addition as it blends in better. The blue LED lights is a tad bright and can be distracting when placed in your eyeline. Plastic is noticibly cheap but not to the point where the device doesn't feel solid. This point is also a bit moot since you really should only have to handle the device once during setup. The rear plugs are spaced at relatively equal distances making it much easier to juggle the cables versus the older models. Some heat can be felt with a lot of playback and as there are no vents try to give it as much airflow as possible though I don't think much is needed. In summation this device is a huge letdown. Despite the playback and hardware being rather nice the UI is an absolute dealbreaker. DO NOT BUY THIS MACHINE! Even with Syabas' promise of firmware upgrades I do not think they'll be able to polish it enough to be considered enjoyably usable. I recommend getting an A-110 for those only needed a player but if you want something to show you what the popbox should have been buy an Apple TV and load Boxee or just wait for the Boxee Box in November. 8 of 10 people found the following review helpful: Frustrating, unstable, the worst software quality imaginable This review is from: PopBox Wireless Media Player (Electronics) WiFi adapter simply refused to connect to the router. Using a component video (1080i) connection, the device displays a welcome (loading..) screen correctly in 1080i and then switches to 480i and proceeds to display only the upper right quadrant of the screen. Completely unusable... (This after downloading a mandatory update and rebooting.) I have never seen more immature product at release. Product ships with a quick start guide listing a customer support help line. If you call the number 1-877-7POPBOX the voice announces that the number has been disconnected. (What a way to stand behind your product.) SAVE YOUR TIME AND MONEY -- DO NOT BY THIS GARBAGE. Most Recent Customer Reviews My vote for worse product of the year! I've been waiting almost a year for this box to come out. I really, really wanted to like it. After reading the recent positive reviews on the latest firmware, I bought 2. by J. Luu I really wanted to like this product, but it's a dud. I have been a big fan of Syabas having owned one of their popcorn hour A-110 media player units for years. by Douglas L. Dorbuck EXCELLENT NOW!!!! ----- BEST PLAYER FOR THE MONEY I have had this box since launch.....to say it was a piece of crap would be an understatement. Over the last few months they have released some firmware updates and now it is an... by K. Owens Popbox Update Update 12/8/10: New firmware has made this a very good unit for playing movies. Almost all of the problems with movie playback, UI interaction, unit stability have been fixed. by M. Johnston Great Concept, BAD Implementation I decided to give te Popbox a try after seeing it in action in Vegas. Thats about the time all the good in the product went out the door. by C. Blankenship Horrible Did not work. Called tech support and they had no clue what i was talking about. Horrible! Stay away from it..... by Riz Good and getting better I like this product. It really doesn't give me issues except a few bugs. They are working on updates and for the most part I am happy with it. It is really getting better by Gerald W Groat III Early adopter issues Right now there is no subtitle support but thy do plan for it to be implemented. Other than that, they aren't missing much. by Wolfburns Don't even consider paying to be a beta tester! Basic functionality doesn't work. Simple as that. You can look at the popbox forums if you don't believe me. by N G Really frustrating, DOES NOT PLAY WELL WITH MACS After having pre-ordered this thing back in April with all of their promises, delayed ship dates and all, I was immensely disappointed with this product. by Ted Stevens

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