Popcorn Hour A100

This morning my popcorn hour A100 arrived, that I bought on ebay for almost nothing.

I have high expectation of this player. A lot of positive review on the internet about it.
Pro:
-A lot of formats
-Network shares
-Hard disk can be build in.
-HD
-Easy to use
-USB
-Bittorrent client
Contra:
-Slow interface
-Slow network connections
-Very slow to transfer from the internal disk

After searching for some cables to connect it. I played with it.
It is looking nice. Good interface, not so slow. But Because my tv only has a DVI interface I needed a other way to have sound it cost me time to get sound. And even now it is not perfect yet, I will need to spend more time on this.

Later on I do some more testing.

Linksys Kiss DP-1600

Some more playing with the linksys.

It is not so bad. Only had problems with a few files to play. HD stuff I have will not play without converting, something I will not do. But the solution for this can be media servers like Tversity, that can convert on the file. Will test this later on. But in general I like it. The dvd player is good.

You also find some media sharing software like freekiss on internet the make sharing of the files easier then the default software of Linksys. I also did some test with wireshark to see how the linksys is communicating with the software and it is looking easy. So later on I will try to create some thing to do the sharing myself. When it is done, or started, I will publish the software some where.

The negative point about the linksys is support of the linksys it self. This is very poor. No new firmware sins a will now. And there are still a few bug to solve. Also missing a timer on the player.

Bedroom and other stuff

Still didn't had the time to put some more photos on-line. But it will happen soon.

Today we redo soon things in the bedroom of our son. Because of the problem in fase 2 of the attic, don't ask, we had to put new lighting. So we went and bought 1 in the form of a moon:and because it was his first week of school we also install a normal bed inside his room.
Hoping he will love it...

Because we, my girlfriend and me, went to get the lamp she bought something for the kitchen to and I had to install.
But the result is better then is was.

Holiday

In holiday for a week now. We went to the sea and or just back.

It was a fantastic week whit my son of 2.5 now. Playing at the beach, we went to see butterfly s and dolphins. So I will post so picture on this.

No to bed it was a long day today

Apple TV

Yesterday I didn't had the time to pick up the apple TV now I have to wait for 2 week after my vacation. So later more about this

School

Today I went to write my son into a school. School that start on 1/9, so it was time to do that :).

Holiday

Just to tell almost holiday. Only 1 working day to go and then 2 week home....

Linksys Kiss DP-1600

Finally the time to look at the new Linksys.
First some picture:
It is looking nice. About have the width of a standard A/V device.
First thing to do was installing it. That went without any problems, I'm using the SCART cable because the TV in the bedroom is an old one.

Then turning it on and the basic setup went like a dream. I 'm using the wireless connection for now. The entry thing toke about 10 min.

First thing I checked was the Firmware, on the site the latest firmware is v1.1.17 but the one install was v1.2. A bit strange so after some searching on internet I found that the 1.2 was only install on the newer device and never release to the public, why nobody now.

So next thing a DVD works perfectly.

Then the real stuff, playing with the network. You have about 4 web service of the device but all in English and most of then not really useful for me (My wife does speak very well English).

Installing the PC-link on one of my computers to test the media part. The installation went good and the software works OK. At last for the first 2 min I used it. I added some folders with some movie to test and the player played all of then. Tomorrow I will take a look to install it on my server and do some more tests with more different formats.

Server to warm

Shit,
I just see that there where troubles on my array in my home server, due to warm inside the server, I think anyway. Now I'm searching for a good tool to monitor these values. Any ideas?

6 disc in on standard desktop case is many a bit to much. With these temperatures.

Apple tv

I just see that I won a apple tv on Internet. The version that has 40 gb for something like 122,5€. I will try to pick it up today. And let you now what I find of it.

Linksys Kiss DP-1600

After my DVD player in my bedroom went dead I looked around to buy a new player but I wanted to have a device that also could play stuff from my network.

The specs I was searching:
-DVD player
-Network access
-Played almost anything (for example mkv)
-Not to expensive
-Harddrive support.
-Upnp

I look at the new Popcorn hour C-200. It looked like it can do all I want it to do (and more), only the price in Europe is a bit high for now.

Looking a bit more I found the Linksys Kiss series that wasn't looking so bad. So after reading a lot about this device and not having a lot of other options I bought the KISS 1600 on internet for about 99€ + 15€ shipping.

Negative point where for me:
-No support for mkv
-Not playing everything correctly
-And bad support from linksys. Helpdesk and firmware support.

But I needed a dvd player so for that price I could try it.
btw if you any other device that can do the stuff I want please tell me.

The player arrived yesterday and I will test it tomorrow.
I will (try) to post some picture and comments on my first impression as soon as I can.

Still not giving up

Hey,

Again a long time ago. But still not giving up to the blog. I will not quite :)

What has happen the baby is now more then 2 years old and we are excepting an other baby. It will be born around 1/2010. So we our very happy.

After having some water coming into the house we decide to change the roof. In the mean will it is done.
Here there our some picture of it:
http://picasaweb.google.com/vleermuis2000/WerkenAanHetDakDag1#
http://picasaweb.google.com/vleermuis2000/WerkenAanHetDakDag2#
http://picasaweb.google.com/vleermuis2000/DakwerkenDag3#
http://picasaweb.google.com/vleermuis2000/WerkenAanHetDakDag6#

I hope I will have some more time to post some more things.