[zargon (Unverified) Posted Nov 19th 2008 12:12PM]

Personally for me, I want a network based streamer since I have a NAS. I actually started off with a Roku Photobridge, which for is time was a awesome device, especially since it was open source and the community was doing a lot of work with third party apps. My other criteria was that I must not need to be running server software to stream to the device, I just wanted to be able to connect it to a network share and have it work. It quickly became dated since it didn't handle too many formats and was lacking any mpeg-4 format, but the idea behind it was second to none.

I have been in search of a replacement for that device for some time. I feel that nothing has really lived up to it, until now, the Popcorn Hour A-100/110. What I like about the Popcorn Hour A-110 (which sadly, I just recently ordered it, not sure why I waited) is that it supports a wide range of formats, way more than the Photobridge did and it sort of an open format and does have a community behind it. It also met my criteria of not needing server software to work and also the other feature that it has that meets your needs, the ability to add a hard drive. I have not done this yet, but by adding a hard drive to the unit enables another set of good features, which include using it as a NAS of sorts and Bittorrent client to name the two bigger ones. I just got it this week and have not had much time to play with it, but it has done what I wanted it to do, stream audio and video. I also think the price of $215 for the unit with out a hard drive is a good deal consider what it does and what is out there, the Photobridge was $300-$400 and didn't have a hard drive or even give you the option to add one. One complaint I have heard about the Popcorn Hour and I guess seen is person, is the menu system can be kind of slow. This is because it is based on simple HTML in an attempt to make it "fast" and easily customizable. They claim to be working on it and in all honesty, from my experience, it isn't that bad but there is always room for improvement.

Another company that I have kept my eye on is DViCO's. They just or are releasing TViX-HD 6500, which I think has pretty much the same feature set as the Popcorn Hour. I do not think it is as open as the Popcorn Hour and therefore it doesn't really have a 3rd party community, but I am not 100% sure on this. One feature that is has out of the box (sort of, sounds like the purchase of an add-on) is the ability to watch live TV, which depending on your needs could be good or not important. One bad thing that I have heard is these can be some what difficult to obtain in the US, I am sure the details, it is just what I have heard.

I would check out both of these devices as I think they would fit your needs. As a added bonus you could stream from a computer or NAS down the road if you decided to as it is easy to do and would not require any additonal software. There is only a little configuring, none of the unit itself other than clicking a few buttons and just a little on your OS, of which there are guides on Popcorn Hours forum and plenty of guides on the internet as well.