Review: The Popcorn Hour A-400

The Popcorn Hour A-400 is the first model in a fourth generation of media centres from Syabas., which is welcomed by everyone since listing. With support for Blu-ray 3D-Video, Full-HD video, several audio and photo codec's and web content, users can experience their digital media how they want. Now let’s view simply phenomenal experience. 

 

Connectivity: Bonjour, UpnP SSDP, UPnP AV, Windows Media Connect, Windows Media Player NSS, Samba, NFS. BitTorrent P2P, Usenet downloader. 
NAS Access : SMB, NFS, FTP 

Hardware Specifications 

• Chipset: 
  Sigma Designs SMP8911 Dual-Core 800Mhz with 512KB L2 Cache with VXP Video Processor 
• Memory: 
  1024MB DDR2, 256MB SLC NAND Flash 
• Audio/Video: 
  HDMI, Component, CVBS, Stereo Audio, S/PDIF, Digital Optical 
• Other Interface: 
  Power LED and Standby LED, 2x USB 2.0 Host, 1 x USB 3.0 Slave, 1 x eSATA, quick dock mounting for 2.5" or 3.5" SATA HDD, Infra-Red Remote Control, SD card reader, IR-Receiver Port 
• Network: 
  Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mbps 
• Power:
  12V DC, 3.5A Max 
• Dimension: 
  Width x Depth x Height : 182mm (W) x 158mm (L) x 56mm (H) (7.2" x 6.2" x 2.2") 
• Weight: 
  1.3kg (2.86lbs) 
• Casing
  Casing designed by Silverstone aluminum Case, fanless Operation

Software Specifications 

• Video containers: 
  MPEG1/2/4 Elementary (M1V, M2V, M4V),MPEG1/2 PS (M2P, MPG, DAT, VOB),MPEG2 Transport Stream (TS, TP, TRP, M2T, M2TS, MTS),AVI, ASF, WMV, Matroska (MKV),MOV (H.264), MP4, RMP4, 3D BD ISO 
• Video Decoders:
  XVID SD/HD,MPEG-1, MPEG-2 MP@HL, MPEG-4.2 ASP@L5, 720p, 1-point GMC, MPEG-4.10 (H.264) : BP@L3, MP@L4.0, HP@L4.0, HP@L4.1,WMV9 : MP@HL,SMPTE 421M (VC-1) : MP@HL, AP@L3 
• Audio Containers:
  AAC, M4A,MPEG audio (MP1, MP2, MP3, MPA),WAV, WMA, FLAC, OGG 
• Audio Decoders:
  DTS, WMA, WMA Pro,MPEG-1 Layer 1, 2, 3, MPEG-4 AAC-LC, MPEG-4 HE-AAC, MPEG-4 BSAC ,LPCM, FLAC, Vorbis, TrueAudio, APE Audio 
• Audio Passthrough:
  DTS, DTS-HD HR, DTS-HD MA 
• Other Formats: 
  ISO, IFO navigation, Simple BD navigation 
• Photo Formats: 
  JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF 
• Subtitle Formats: 
  SRT, MicroDVD SUB, SSA, SUB/IDX
  
  

Pros 

A Nice Interface 
Good Multimedia Player 
Plenty of Connections, Decent Networking Speed 
Picture quality 
fantastic build quality 
plays things other players can't 

Cons 

It has good multimedia player, but still a few bugs. 
Quite expensive 
have to provide your own internal storage 
online services still not that compelling 

Nowthe Popcorn Hour A-410 had released, know more about it for playing movies