[mythtvnz] Popcornhour PCH-100

[Andrew Gordon]

Jason Taylor wrote:
> All the uPnP front ends i've seen so far are unable to fast forward
> skip etc from my mythbackend
> I'm not sure if this is a limitation of uPnP or just hasn't been implemented

I've used a PlayStation 3 playing from a MythTV UPnP backend 
(debian-multimedia version 0.20.2.svn20080126-0.1).  It used to work 
fine both fast forward (1.5x, 10x, etc) and re-wind except for 
disconnecting with some DLNA error now and then.  Recently I upgraded 
the firmware and now it doesn't (hasn't) disconnect but it also doesn't 
resume playback after fast forward or re-winding either.  You have to 
stop the playback and start it again, but it does remember where you 
were up to so it's not that big a deal.

My Popcornhour player arrived on Friday last week.  Very promising 
little piece of kit.  Firmware still needs some work though.  Problems 
I've had so far:

- It wouldn't do 1080p50 with my TV, 1080p60 and 1080i50 not a problem 
though.
- My MythTV UPnP server showed up, but it wouldn't go down as far as 
listing the actual recorded files, just sat spinning it's little flower 
and required a power cycle to get out of it
- My UPnP server on my MacBook didn't show up at all, so I couldn't try 
(easily) playing the DL.TV episodes that iTunes downloads for me :-(
- Didn't seem to take any notice of aspect ratio information in both 
MPEG2 and xvid AVIs.  MPEG2s it seemed to at first but after a firmware 
upgrade it stopped do that.
- It seemed like my Internet connection wasn't fast enough to play the 
online videos that you can get to through it's menu system.  Perhaps it 
isn't optimised for the higher latency that we have here or something, 
since I had 5min averages of over 1000kbytes/sec the other night (that 
was with a number of TCP flows though).
- Liked to lock up a bit when doing some things.
- Didn't resume play back after fast forward/re-winds exactly where you 
stopped, for MPEG2s at least (TV2 DVB-S recordings).  Could be related 
to GOPs.

It did play all the files I managed to get it to see though, but I 
haven't tried very many (yet).  But that does include 720p [hx]264  MKVs 
with AC3 (off a CF card via a USB card reader), fast forward worked, but 
re-wind didn't (invalid button).  Both fast forward and re-wind worked 
playing xvid AVIs from a Twonkyvision UPnP server.

If a fullish MythTV frontend (like what you can get for the little MVP 
devices) was made available for it, that would be really neat.  It does 
have some sort of HTML reader thingy that a server could probably be 
written for to get some functionality.  I'll have to have a play.





> On 04/04/2008, Nick Rout <nick.rout at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 5:00 PM, Jason Taylor <killerkiwi2005 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  > What are they running on that box?
>>  >
>>  >  Linux distro?
>>
>>
>> I doubt it, looks more like one of the specialised HD media chipsets
>>  with a custom firmware. Such devices are becoming quite common.
>>
>>  As such it won't make a full front end unless someone hacks one up in
>>  a custom firmware. However it does mention that it supports uPnP and
>>  DLNA which should make it an adequate front end for viewing
>>  recordings. Not sure about live tv.
>>
>>  Would prefer to see someone else succeed with it before I invested :-)
>>
>>  Try the main mythtv-user list perhaps?
>>
>>
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> 
>