Yes we will be bringing Youtube back to the A-200 and C-200. It will be delivered as an application similar to that of Rev3 and other apps right now.

A-100/A-110′s will not have it because we can only deliver the Flash Version of Youtube, and can no longer support the html version.

Regards, DE Support Team support@digitalera.co.uk

You can check out all the info over at the networked media tank forums – be sure to keep an eye out for updates!

On a personal note all I have wanted since I sold my xbox was XBMC up and running on a media player without the hassle of a HTPC.

I was mostly inactive for the last few months (for those who noticed) because of this. To keep it under wraps, I decided to work mostly alone and seek help outside of the NMT community. Naturally, XBMC needs no introduction.

With Flash Lite GUIs in development, I felt I needed to completely trump all current GUIs and jukeboxes. All the work was completely done. We just needed to get it to “work.”

Early on, I realized that if I could get this working, this would certainly revolutionize the NMT. If you think about it, we would be instantly backed by the entire XBMC community. That’s 7 years of development and a 50,000+ userbase.

I can’t go much into detail about this project as this is still in beta. It is close enough to completion that I can offer this to beta testers, but it will be extremely closed, even more so than the Alaska beta (for those who remember). If all goes well, a first public release should be within reach.

All I can discuss is what’s in the video:

1. I am running a version of XBMC Live via USB. However, it should just as easilly be installed to an internal hard drive.
2. The default interface (Confluence) can sometimes be sluggish, but optimizing XBMC and the skin is in the works. Simpler skins, such as Alaska, should run smoother.

As mentioned, this is an extremely closed beta. This means:

1. I will NOT be accepting candidates for beta testers. Instead, I will be messaging YOU, offering you a position on the beta testing team. Please do not ask why I haven’t chosen you. Please do not take it personally if I don’t choose you.
2. I will only speak about development to beta testers, whoever they might be. You can ask as many questions as you like, but I can only guarantee answers to beta testers.
3. I will not be posting the list of beta testers, so beta testers must interact directly with me only.

We expect a public beta test soon, so finally the A200/C200 gets a good UI

Regards, DE Support Team support@digitalera.co.uk

Release Date : 24 February 2010  
Firmware Version : 02-02-100208-19-POP-411 Download
Note : Unzip into the root of your USB thumbdrive. Browse to usbupdate.html to update.  
Please DO NOT power off the unit during firmware update, as it will render your unit inoperational

Regards, DE Support Team support@digitalera.co.uk

Click More for the Popcorn Hour A-200 Release Notes

1. New NMT apps 02-01-100119-19-POP-411
 
2. BD/AVCHD/DVD/CDDA
  – Retrieve DVD region and number of changes available from the hardware; show these info in the region setting pop-up box
  – Bookmark/resume support for DVD ISO/VIDEO_TS
    – Max. 10 bookmarks. 
    – known issue, sometimes failed to resume correctly for certain clips 
  – Implemented simple persistfs folder
    – if NMT HDD not exist, any available writable device (HDD/USB) will be auto-detected and used. 
    – previous /persistfs mounting wizard removed
  – Temporarly mount VideoCD/SVCD as data disc, to play the .dat
  – Fixed DVD fast-forward issue; press FF->PAUSE->PLAY key, playback could not resume
  – Fixed some DVD ISO files cannot resume from bookmark.
  – Fixed system hang when BD-J ISO playback BDJ ISO without /persistfs (Bug #5000285)
  – Fixed playback BDJ disc from internal BDROM without /persistfs connected.
  – Fixed certain DVD ISO (Apocalypto.ISO) cannot resume from bookmark (Bug #5000289).
  – Fixed subtitle cannot be enabled when play DVD with only single subtitle.
  – Fixed audio CD info not showed
  – Fixed occasional access/mount failure to disc in USB drive (Bug #5000315, #5000316)
  – Workaround for CDDA issues (Bug #5000302, #5000303)
  – Workaround for BD-ROM via USB support
  – Performance improvement for BD ISO playback
  – Added patches for audio bitstream issues
  – Enabled MENU key for DVD/ISO/VIDEO_TS playback
  – Added REPEAT A-B function for DVD/VIDEO_TS and CDDA 
    – Known to have slow response
    – A-B interval of less than 2sec may have issue
  – Workaround for BD audio no output after switch from HD audio to Dolby Digital/DTS 
  – Fixed after HDMI audio muted, DVD playback will have noise on audio output
  – SimpleBD navigation feature for A-200
    – Added support for ISO files.
    – Fixed video skip forward about an hour when switch audio track. (Tested BEVERLY_HILLS_CHIHUAHUA)
    – Fixed subtitle menu incorrect listing 
    – Fixed audio/subtitle persistency issue
    – Fixed incorrect icon displayed when doing scene selection using menu
  – Enabled MENU key for DVD/ISO/VIDEO_TS playback
  – Added ANGLE switching OSD display for DVD/ISO/VIDEO_TS/BRD playback.
  – Added option in SETUP page to enable or disable BD PiP
  – Fixed AVCHD disc intermittent “could not play” issue.
  – Fixed AVCHD shown as “BLU-RAY Video” at OSD infobar
  – Fixed short audio mute issue when resume from bookmark for DVD content playback
  – For AudioCD/DVD/AVCHD, Right/Left key will do +/- 30 seconds skip
 
3. Video and Audio playback
  – Added Dolby DRC (Dynamic Range Control) setting
  – Fixed RW/FF/Slow icon not cleared after seek
  – Fileplayer bookmark/resume support (first-cut) 
    – Max. 10 bookmarks
    – bookmark saved on STOP keypress; subsequent press (ENTER or PLAY) will resume from bookmark.
    – To start from beginning, press ’0′.
  – Fixed incorrect aspect ratio (Bug #5000155)
  – Fixed “actual size” aspect ratio issue when playback clips below 1080p. (Bug #5000154)
  – Fixed BiDi char type table to resolved incorrect Hebrew subtitle rendering.
  – Partially fixed Arabic Tashkeel character shaping issue
  – Fixed subtitle size/position affected by pan/zoom.
  – Modified time seek hh:mm:ss key handling.
  – Fixed certain clips WMAPro audio lose output after 1-2 sec playback.
  – Forced 24p source to framerate 60Hz for non-1080p TV mode
  – Fixed issue where audio playback do not stop gracefully when encounter file read error
  – added FLAC audio support, including multi-channel FLAC
  – Fixed and restored video/audio bitrate display
  – Added Vorbis/FLAC audio bitrate display.
  – Fixed MKV playback file cannot get audio bitstream/passthrough after resume from bookmark.
  – Modified subtitle menu order and reversed time offset key direction; same as A100
  – Changed tab-switching (SOURCE key) focus behaviour
  – Show only ID3 album art if exist, when music playback 
  – Fixed incorrect ID3 genre display for certain files
  – Disable bookmark for Internet/Broadcast/MSP/SayaTV video playback
  – Temporarily disabled video format with psfdemux/demux for video/audio bitrate shown on infobar.
  – Increased subtitle font size range. 
  – maintain adjusted subtitle time offset throughout playlist.
  – Increased vertical position range for external text subtitle.
  – Stop background slideshow before starting VOD to release free memory (Bug #5000299)
  – Fixed detection conflict between FLAC, WAV and AVS video (Bug #5000287)
  – Enable support for FLAC and VORBIS with 3, 4 & 5 channels
  – Support Thai(codepage 874) external ext-based subtitle
  – Checking of Byte Order Mark for external SRT in UTF8 (Bug #5000322)
  – Fixed positioning of long/large-size text-based subtitle
  – Fixed external text-based subtitle via HTTP e.g. myiHome not loaded (Bug #5000250)
  – Fixed resume/bookmark issue; only seekable files can be bookmarked now 
  – Fix to only allow files with duration and seekable status to do time seek (LEFT/RIGHT/GOTO) (Bug #5000139)
  – Fixed file certain WMV clip unable to end after LEFT/RIGHT/GOTO seek
  – Fixed STEP on clip that is not steppable will terminate playback
  – Fixed after trigger SEEK LEFT/RIGHT/GOTO on the infobar will show PAUSE/STOP icon then only show PLAY icon.
  – Fixed hang-up when press PLAY on m3u file (Bug #5000320)
  – Fixed issue regarding video zoom/scaling (Bug #5000327)
  – Improvements for h264 video frame sequence calculation to handle typical h264 encoding fault caused by non-standard ripping
  – MKV chapter support, use PREV/NEXT key
  – Added FLAC metadata display for music playback
  – Added shuffle feature for music playlist; press REPEAT to toggle
  – Added gapless playback feature for audio playback (first phase)
    – only for MP3 and WAV now, and for subsequent files of same format
    – cannot seek when prebuffer starts near end of file
  – Fixed certain TS video clips cannot do LEFT/RIGHT/GOTO/TIME SEEK seek/resume from bookmark.
  – Fixed if huge MKV chapter size causing system error.
  – Fixed certain Internet radio cannot play.
  – Fixed UPnP-AV (WMP11) playlist item crashes.
  – embedded PGS subtitle support for M2TS files (first phase)
  – Fixed PGS/M2TS subtitle rendering resolution flaw
  – Enabled camcoder AVCHD type detection.
  – Added gapless audio support for FLAC format.
  – Support for changing subtitle encoding on-the-fly
    – in subtitle menu; only for ASCII codepages (Latin1, Greek, Cyrillic, Turkish, Vietnamese, Thai), GB2312, BIG5, Shift_JIS and UTF-8)
  – Fixed missing space with italic subtitle
  – Fixed PGS subtitle potential hang. 
  – Workaround to enable 24Hz at auto framerate sync
  – Fixed gapless playback feature for small mp3 file less than 1MB
  – Added album art retrieval from FLAC metadata
  – Added Brightness, Contrast, Hue and Saturation setting for video (press Setup during video playback)
  – Fixed issue where single file playback could not toggle repeat mode.
  – Fixed M2TS PGS subtitle issue
  – Workaround WMAPro bitstream output issue
  – Added all playable formats allow for audio playlist
  – Fixed incomplete FLAC metadata retrieval
  – Fixed playlist sometimes does not start from correct file
  – Fixed m4a song info and album art display
  – Patch Colorspace algorithm (for file playback only)
  – Fixed playback failure via certain HTTP server (SwissCenter)
  – Disable subpicture for .VOB file play
  – Fixed WAV detection that crash with MPEG1/2
  – Fixed subtitle switching issue with MPEG; previously broken external subtitle on/off function
  – Fixed specific ASF cannot fast forward
  – Fixed subtitle CP1258 detection
  – Added album art retrieval from FLAC metadata
  – Added BCS (Brightness/Contrast/Saturation) on-the-fly setting during playback (press Setup)
  – workaround for MKV audio lip-sync issue
  – Fixed scaling/zoom/pan OSD menu unintended pop-up when playback near end of file
  – Fixed STOP key cannot save the bookmark file to flash setting when scaling/zoom/pan menu is ON.
  – Fixed playlist sometimes does not start from correct file
  – Improved SRT subtitle parsing
  – Display language code of MKV embedded subtitles
  – Fixed m4a song info and album art display
  – Exception handling for ID3 genre index out-of-range (7034.mp3)
  – Enable 7.1 support for flac, vorbis and also mkv-flac mkv-vorbis
  – Fixed error in MKV embedded subtitle language code display causing disappearing menu
  – Fixed MKV aspect ratio error
  – Fixed some internet radio links cannot stream with MMS protocol.
  – PGS subtitle support for MKV
    – May have time offset issue depending on muxer software.
  – Workaround to overcome some m2ts stream with incorrect PTS causing subtitle to show up for 1~100ms then dissapear (Bug #5000395)
  – Workaround to output M2TS TrueHD as Dolby Digital where applicable
  – Added manual audio sync support to compensate HDMI audio sync issue (press SETUP during video playback)
 
4. Photo app
  – Fixed an issue when setting repeat on the last photo in playlist will show current playlist item as 0 on FIP (Bug #5000116)
  – Fixed PNG image decoding causing system hang
  – Fixed issues where myiHome (Mac) not focusing on photo when playback photo with BGM and stopping photo does not stop BGM
  – Enable screensaver during photo playlist pause state
  – Slideshow, new photo info (ISO speed, F number and Exposure time)
 
5. OSD
  – fixed minor OSD text wrapping issue.
  – slight modification for info display during video/photo playback.
 
6. System/Network
  – Fixed cannot eject data disc (Bug #5000064)
  – Workaround for missing folder issue due to filesystem failed to identify directory type for unknown reason with scandir (Bug #5000218)
  – Fixed incorrect display resolution when boot up in auto TV mode without connecting HDMI.
  – Tweak to improve network performance.
  – Fix for HDMI blackout and HDMI audio mute issue
  – Added progress indicator during firmware update download
  – Fixed flash driver to avoid occasional hang issue when umount particular partition 
  – Fixed default value; DTS:PCM, DRC:off for factory setting
  – Changed “AC3″ wording to “Dolby Digital”, shifted DRC setting down to Audio section
  – Fixed language tanslations
  – Added Country/Region code to WiFi config setup.
    – Country/Region contains channel settings for 8 regions; only for Ralink MII card.
  – Fixed stuck in playback if no network up
  – Fixed reboot failure (Bug #5000243)
  – Fixed screensaver still kicks in at background when in standby mode
  – Show harddisk and usb disk size when info button pressed
  – Show file size on the UI listing
  – Reverted patch which fixed screensaver kicking in at background when standby; causing (Bug #5000314)
  – Resolved screensaver setting issue after restoring factory setting
  – Fixed video scaling info not updated during PAUSE (Bug #5000306)
  – Disallow file copy of over 4GB to FAT device (filesystem limitation)
  – included kernelmode NTFS read/write driver
  – Fixed configure proxy result in error page
  – Fixed DVD parental setting cannot be saved
  – minor update on Chinese/Japanese language pack
  – Fixed HDD name not displayed
  – Fixed occasional detection failure of NTFS harddisk
  – New network share UI
  – Turn on syabas_command_server
  – Improve time for NFS (UDP/TCP) client login to non-exist/blocked shares
  – Improve time for server discovery utility
  – More intelligent handling of protocol type instead of .udp. default
  – Torrent client HTTP wget fix
  – Network share, number of allowed persistent links has been increased to 20.
  – Fixed USB unmount issue
  – Fixed issue of incorrect redirection when changing password in NMT Apps page
  – Fixed CD status update while opening/closing
  – Fixed issue where some servers were missing from the discovery
  – Minor update to language pack
  – Added USB keyboard hotplug handling
  – Fixed incorrect harddisk status/icon display after USB slave operations
  – minor graphical adjustment for Info bar
  – Show decimal fraction for disk info (Bug #5000392)
 
7. Browser
  – New twirling icon
  – New licensed font integrated
  – Support dynamic loading of external js file
  – New UI theme
  – To display memory usage; press SLOW key
  – Fixed Pause key wrongly mapped as Play/Pause key
  – Fixed ‘No Disc Found’ message not shown and browser hang when accessing empty loader (Bug #5000292)
  – press PLAY on non-playable item will instead play from first playable item in the folder
  – Browser user-agent missing closing bracket.
  – Added “remove USB device” feature in file mode menu
  – For browser to display USB mount point instead of USB name
  – browser will stay busy until all images from previous page is loaded
  – Fixed file operation delete/copy/newfolder/move/rename/createplaylist does not update the list in UI
  – Fixed Internet radio showing image info on front panel LCD
  – Fixed SD mode media source listing issue, broken in previous RC release
  – Fixed HTTP mime type overwritten issue
 
8. WiFi
  – Integrated WIFI driver for Realtek USB RTL8192
  – Turn on Ethernet LNK LED when link to 100baseT as well.
  – Fixed connection failure if disable SSID broadcast at router and key in SSID manually (Bug #5000331)
  – Fixed unable to play Internet radio via MSP when using WiFi (Bug #5000330)
  – Fixed issue where empty entry is displayed in the SSID dropdown list (Bug #5000341)
  – Added in support for extended printable ASCII characters for SSID/security code input (Bug #5000345)
  – Fixed soft reboot wasn’t able to reboot machine, after connection to network with wifi device(Bug #5000340)
  – Check on WPA state and continue with configuration when state is WPA_COMPLETED
  – Fixed improper word displayed at the wifi connection column while not able to establish connection (Bug #5000342)
  – Improved IP address acquisition when using DHCP (Bug #5000339, #5000344)
 
9. UPnP AV
  – Added image resolution support (Twonky photo bug) 
  – Fixed UPnP device duplication issue when server restart or host name changed 
  – Added .ts, .avi support (Twonky) 
  – Resolved photo pause-next will hang the system
  – support mp2v m4a mp4 m4v.
  – Resolved PlayOn “no content found” problem
  – Fixed URL with parameters cannot find extension
 
10. Web Services
  – App Center service
  – Official SHOUTcast service added
  – Fixed “scroll up” page handling issue.
  – Fixed loading wrong saved flash info in SD mode
 
11. PHF (ROBIG)
  – Overall performance improvement, fixes for multi-language support
  – Fixed PHF launch without special HTML attributes
  – Enable system font
  – New Revision3 app
  – Handle volume up/down
  – Shoutcast app reenabled 
  
 NMT Apps Version : 02-01-100119-19-POP-411 
 
 Release Note : 1.Minimum firmware version to use this NMT App is 02-01-091203-19-POP-411
 
2. myiHomeLite
  – change audio playback slideshow images
  – change theme
 
3. BitTorrent
  – New Transmission client 1.75
  – Fixed parse data error causing BT page unable to show
 
4. FTP
  – FTP server, new share path (/opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives) to share out all HDD and USB devices.
 
5. Network
  – Samba improvement on read/write speed
 
6. UnP AV Server
  – Fixed some media files not visible from 8642/8634 player
 
7. Change stop NZB command to fix firmware update getting black screen 
  
 Note : Unzip into the root of your USB thumbdrive. Browse to usbupdate.html to update.
 Please DO NOT power off the unit during firmware update, as it will render your unit inoperational.

To go along with the launch of the Popcorn Hour A200 in the UK we have also reduced the price of the C200.

Regards, DE Sales Team Sales@digitalera.co.uk

The Popcorn Hour A-200 is a new network media player in a compact case that slots in-between the company’s entry-level (and now discontinued)  A-110 and flagship C-200; you lose the externally-accessed HDD/Blu-ray bay (though you can still internally mount a 2.5/3.5-inch HDD) but still get full 1080p HD functionality. A new flash based UI and application centre coming soon in a new firmware release.

The core specifications of the A200 are a 667MHz processor, 512MB of memory and 256MB of NAND flash. With all that power needless to say it can handle MPEG-4, DivX, Xvid and AVCHD formats, along with UPnP media streaming and internet video, pretty much everything you can throw at it.

Connectivity includes USB 2.0 slave and host ports, gigabit Ethernet, HDMI v1.3a and the usual component/composite/S-Video ports.

Any questions just get in touch.

Regards, DE Sales Team sales@digitalera.co.uk