Popcorn Hour C-200 Networked Media Tank - Black Review

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(More customer reviews)BUYER BEWARE!!! I bought the C-200 back in December 2009, it worked well for a while but died in August 2010, I had to send it back to popconhour for a new motherboard :( The device does play everything you throw at it and is faily versatile in that it can take an optional bluray drive and more internal store etc. Unfortunately it is an ugly addition to a home theatre setup. There is no offical support that I can see, most of the problems people have with playback seem to be addressed with firmware updates. It is NOT worth the price, there are many alternactive devices available now which do just as good a job, WDTV, PlayOn, ASROCK ION 330 etc. Trust me, it is a hassle to keep this thing working well. The forums over on networkedmediatank shows many uswers having problems which are NEVER resolved. Best steer clear of this box and all other popcornhour devices folks.

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It's Time to Unleash Your TV The Popcorn Hour C-200 is the most powerful and versatile Networked Media Tank yet. It's blazing-fast processor, Blu-ray capability and storage options make the C-200 an ideal addition to your home theater or high-definition entertainment system. All Your Media in One Box With Popcorn Hour you can stream or playback digital media content from a variety of sources, such as your PC, network-attached storage, digital camera or USB storage (flash drive, hard disk, and DVD drive). Popcorn Hour also makes it easy to download and stream content directly from popular Internet sites like SHOUTcast Radio, Blip.tv, Revision 3 and dozens of others. Popcorn Hour even has a built-in download utility, eliminating the need to rely on your PC to download files from the Internet. Expand Your Possibilities. The C-200 includes the most expansion options with a total of 5 USB ports and 2 SATA ports for all your storage needs. You can add a Blu-ray drive to turn your Popcorn Hour C-200 into a full-featured Blu-ray player. You can add a hard drive to create a central library of all your digital media files, ready to play on your HDTV at any time. Requires at least 1GB storage space (USB or Hard Disk) for full playback.

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Pioneer VSX-521-K 5.1 Home Theater Receiver, Glossy Black Review

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(More customer reviews)My choices for an entry level replacement receiver were between this and the Sony STR-DH720. I picked the Pioneer as I was replacing a 10 year old Pioneer that had just recently started acting up and I was quite happy with. This receiver is plenty loud, but I do have two primary complaints. My first (and biggest) is the fact that it doesn't seem to support ARC or Standby Passthrough unless you enable "Control via HDMI" which only works with certain pieces of equipment as is only spelled out in the manual. On the website, they simply have a check-mark next to both features, so I didn't expect either to have caveats. Perhaps I am wrong in thinking that the HDMI signal should pass through the receiver if it is in standby regardless of whether "Control via HDMI" is turned on and regardless of the equipment being Pioneer-compliant, but I feel it was a bit misleading in my mind. Please note that I am no A/V expert, so take what I say with a grain of salt and please research for yourself. In the mean time I am considering leaving the HDMI switching to my display and making use of the dual optical inputs like I did with my old receiver. My other complaint is that the on-screen-display (OSD) is only output through the RCA ports and NOT through HDMI. After purchasing brand new 1.4 HDMI cables and attempting to rid myself of all of the other optical-toslink, etc. cables, I find it a bit retro that you would only allow menu setup to happen through RCA video out. Just my opinions, decide for yourself, but given the info I have now, I believe I would've went with the DH720 and hoped for the best.

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The Pioneer VSX-521 features a Bluetooth wireless audio option with 550 watts of high powered 5.1 home theater audio playback. Other features include 4 HDMI 1.4a 3-D ready inputs, hi resolution Dolby and dts multi-channel audio playback from Blu-Ray discs, Pioneer's proprietary Auto MCACC room calibration system, and On-Screen display.

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