An A-400 without teething problems

An A-400 without teething problems

Popcorn Hour A-410 media player (Electronics)

Customer Review

Already have an A-200 with Popcorn, and satisfied, I wanted to stay in Popcorn.
Competition remains fierce though confidential in this niche.
It suffers the design of this type of multimedia hard drive that is always a little too technical to make the truly public.

The A-400 out for about 1 year had many teething problems (see comments and various forums on this subject), despite the efforts of Syabas (Popcorn) to update the firmware its brand image is found still largely dented.
It is true that sell a product close to 300 without a hard drive which has many problems was not very professional on their part.

Anyway, when I saw the A-410 out the tip of his nose with two main differences compared to the A-400: A specific sound chipset and a doubled memory, I thought why not. And especially praying that Syabas has made the appropriate changes so that it does not have the same troubles of A-400.

On receiving what have we in the box:

- The housing
- A remote control
- Two batteries
- A USB 3.0 cable
- An HDMI cable
- A power supply with cable
- A rather cryptic manual
- A promotion on an online sales site by subscription (music)

** Introduction **

The case is very well finished (it changes the A-200 full plastic!) Matte black brushed metal.
Smaller and slightly higher than the A-200 remains very compact.
Without ventilation will take care not to put it in a non-ventilated area because it uses passive cooling through the case.
The rear has everything that is done with the standards currently (HDMI, eSATA, USB 3.0, Optical, coaxial, RCA audio, SD card reader, Ethernet port, analog video output ...) short nothing missing except wi-fi (but having said that truly remains an option since the speed wi-fi is catastrophic and I would strongly advise Ethernet for network play).

** The remote control **
Phew! They had the good sense not to change it. It still falls well in hand. Always backlit and always consumes battery in case of intensive use (bring rechargeable batteries).

** ** The Installation
Nothing complicated, using the small key (unfortunately plastic) lateral compartment is opened, the hard drive is inserted on the disc is closed and screwed everything.
Simple enough, although it is regrettable that an opening remains visible on the flank and portends the dust in the housing facility over time.

You plug everything on his TV, with its optical output on the sound system.
Nothing special about that.

The first start is through much simpler installation phase that the A-200.
A menu helps us in a few steps to run the beast.
They have made great efforts in this area and that's fine.
All in French.

The general presentation with a beautiful wallpaper that shows the weather bodes well.
Pretty cool gadget but the background changes according to the time and date.

The menu scrolls at the bottom of the screen and you can access the various menus.
One can very well read his files in the "classic" mode that is listed according to its directories and alphabetical order.
Or use the Jukebox or NMJ (networked media jukebox) software that allows a display of all of his films, series, music ... In "wall" or transmit properly with the posters and summaries of movies and other series. Very nice to see and very convenient to find what we seek (a search engine is included in the menu).
We need to ensure correct function well rename the file "cleanly".
Exit totolefilm.divx.francais.blabla.avi ----> it must be "clean" and enter the following: toto.avi
Additionally when scanning more you have the more files is slow.
You can add per-directory if one does not wish to do all the entire disc.
Once done, we have the pleasure to use this "wall" poster which is much more pleasant and convenient than the "list" Autere before.
The box will search on the internet with the information it needs to identify the movies.
If a problem (it can happen that a film is a remake for example - Total Recall to name him) one can easily rename it directly via the NMJ and redo a manual search to select exactly the right information.
A little long and tedious but doable.
Ditto for file renaming, Popcorn has a keyboard "virtual" very convenient.
The advantage of double the RAM speeds up the display of nmj and launch videos (especially compared to the A-200).

** Files **
It's not very complicated the A-410 reads everything known.
I have had a problem with the videos "flv", while the rest goes.
Even the sound level, mp3, flac & c ° anything goes.

** ** The image
Obviously it also depends on his screen and many ...
... But the definition is very good. The resolution is fine color rendering entirely correct, the contrast is very good.
For subtitles are much thinner than before, but they may seem a bit small for some (I find how to change the colors and make them appear well calibrated over the soundtrack, but to enlarge or reduce the impossible ...).

** The Sound **
No complaints.
You never get a quality of a Teac VRDS Jadis Orchestra with a good pair of JMLab (for those who remember ...), but everything is well defined and returned.
The small chip dedicated allows its management totally separate and therefore not parasitized by another makes "everything".
A small plus.

** Network **
You can also set the network Popcorn quite simply, it becomes a kind of NAS available everywhere.
This somewhat probing universe allows any hacker to find happiness, the Popcorn forums are very active in this area.

** ** Ports
USB 3.0 "slave" mode allows fast transfer of files from one computer to the case (which becomes an external hard drive)
The other two USB 2.0 ports are there for the USB key or external hard drive.
The Esata is a good idea but more difficult to implement, except to have a computer nearby.
Warning: Strangely it was impossible to recognize an external hard drive 3T 3.5 ° with a dedicated power supply, but no problem with my western digital disk 500G 2.5 ° with the supply of Popcorn (even with an extra USB connected it).

** Bonus **
Popcorn offers a little bonus: nmj management and a virtual remote control via smartphone and tablet (android & ios).
We just have to enter the IP address of the device in the app (free) and start.
I tested it on my Nexus 4 without any difficulty.
It works pretty well, it is quite responsive.
By cons I do not think it is very suitable on a smartphone, a tablet would be more appropriate.
For virtual remote control you have to turn several "pages" as the buttons are desired.
The NMJ (although complete with posters and abstracts) is too large to display surface to be properly seen on my little screen ...
By cons in case of failure of batteries for the remote control or in the possession of a tablet it allows you to quickly navigate between movies and other series.
We feel that this is the first all versions and developments will occur over time.
But it's still a nice idea.

** Finally **
It was quite a successful case, bug free (at least for me!), With better specifications than the previous (A-400) and especially without the problems associated with his young design.
Very good performance and using the latest in graphics and sound chipset should not disappoint the aficionados.
Although it is a little more democratized its use for installation there is not enough "general public" to find a customer that uses electronic devices without understanding the inner workings.
However, it remains very very good product, very well finished and perfectly served its purpose.

TO @

Pogyz

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