Price : Too low to display
With the PopBox, you finally have an incredibly simple way to play ALL of your own stored movies, home videos, pictures and music on your HDTV. Plus, with the PopBox Apps Market you can now easily access the internet’s most popular TV shows, videos, movies, sports, music and games on any HDTV in the house. The latest version allows users to enjoy stereoscopic 3D (Matroska 3D and other supported formats) on your 3D TV.
This review is from : PopBox 3D Multimedia Player - Black
Popbox is the best for the price and maybe just the best . I am really glad to see the Popbox being sold on Amazon again. It's first iteration was, well shall we say, problematic. But since release, the company has listened to it's customer requests for improvements and now it's firmware has been vastly improved. First, this thing just plain plays movie files flawlessly for me. I have about 250 BD iso's, dvd iso, mkv's and mp4's and mov's It plays them all without a hiccup. It's fanless. Video quality is fantastic. Audio quality is fantastic. It's jukebox interface has been reorganized and navigation speed improved. It's movie scraping has been about 99% accurate and cover art has also improved. You can add an app for using the YAMJ jukebox as the player instead of the native Popbox jukebox. Thats a really nice option for those who like a really slick looking interface and like to work with their movie metadata. Forced PGS subtitles are working. It will aggregate multiple hard drives of movies into a single library, so you can have huge movie libraries. It will work wired or wireless over a network. Streaming blu-ray over wireless can be problematic. Not because of the Popbox but because most home networks just cannot consistently handle streaming that high of a bit rate. I should note that purchase of a wifi dongle is required if you want to go wireless. I just don't think there is another product in this price range that handles movie playback as good as this unit.
For the downside: The remote is poorly organized. If you looking for a lot of premium Apps such as Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, etc you are going to be disappointed. There are some apps but many. To the credit of the developers, they have focused their energies on improving the functionality of the unit. All along they have planned to provide premium apps and now that the unit has stabilized, I think more resources will be devoted toward that end. Also, the pictures and music sections are just passable. They basically work but there is a lot of room for improvement. Again, they really hammered at the main functionality of the unit, movie playback. And from what I have been reading on various media streamer forums, they all have pretty weak music and picture capability. Finally, if you are looking for something where you can modify and adjust a lot of functionality, this unit is not for you. This really is for people that want a simple unit that they can plug in and hit play. Popcorn Hour units might be better suited for you if you want to have more ability to make modifications/adjustments.
The unit is not yet perfect (and what unit is?). But if movie playback is your main need and you are looking for a jukebox style unit that scrapes movie cover art and info automatically, I would highly recommend you try the Popbox.
Popbox is the best for the price and maybe just the best . I am really glad to see the Popbox being sold on Amazon again. It's first iteration was, well shall we say, problematic. But since release, the company has listened to it's customer requests for improvements and now it's firmware has been vastly improved. First, this thing just plain plays movie files flawlessly for me. I have about 250 BD iso's, dvd iso, mkv's and mp4's and mov's It plays them all without a hiccup. It's fanless. Video quality is fantastic. Audio quality is fantastic. It's jukebox interface has been reorganized and navigation speed improved. It's movie scraping has been about 99% accurate and cover art has also improved. You can add an app for using the YAMJ jukebox as the player instead of the native Popbox jukebox. Thats a really nice option for those who like a really slick looking interface and like to work with their movie metadata. Forced PGS subtitles are working. It will aggregate multiple hard drives of movies into a single library, so you can have huge movie libraries. It will work wired or wireless over a network. Streaming blu-ray over wireless can be problematic. Not because of the Popbox but because most home networks just cannot consistently handle streaming that high of a bit rate. I should note that purchase of a wifi dongle is required if you want to go wireless. I just don't think there is another product in this price range that handles movie playback as good as this unit.
For the downside: The remote is poorly organized. If you looking for a lot of premium Apps such as Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, etc you are going to be disappointed. There are some apps but many. To the credit of the developers, they have focused their energies on improving the functionality of the unit. All along they have planned to provide premium apps and now that the unit has stabilized, I think more resources will be devoted toward that end. Also, the pictures and music sections are just passable. They basically work but there is a lot of room for improvement. Again, they really hammered at the main functionality of the unit, movie playback. And from what I have been reading on various media streamer forums, they all have pretty weak music and picture capability. Finally, if you are looking for something where you can modify and adjust a lot of functionality, this unit is not for you. This really is for people that want a simple unit that they can plug in and hit play. Popcorn Hour units might be better suited for you if you want to have more ability to make modifications/adjustments.
The unit is not yet perfect (and what unit is?). But if movie playback is your main need and you are looking for a jukebox style unit that scrapes movie cover art and info automatically, I would highly recommend you try the Popbox.
PopBox 3D Multimedia Player - Black Reviews
I prefer a Boxee Box . I recently purchased the ZyXEL NSA221 2-bay Network Attached Storage and Media Server NAS Media server, 2x2TB Western Digital drivers, a PopBox and a Boxee box to see what provided the best media home setup. Here's what it comes down to.
The PopBox is a great alternative to Boxee simply because it's DLNA compliant, and works right off the bat with ZyXEL NAS. Awesome. No Netflix support, and no included wifi were slight deal killers, but I also own an ATV2 and figured Boxee supporting Netflix would offset this need.
For clarification, I have two 40 inch LCDs, one in the bedroom, one in the living room. Both are 1080p, 120hz. Both hooked up to a simple 2.1 audio system.
Popbox does a great job automatically seeing content on the NAS, understanding it and embedding the proper meta data and art for it. I should also clarify most of the content and media used on it was strictly video. Using iTunes and iPhoto the Apple TV 2 so far has provided the best solution for all other media but video.
So with my library of 720p MKV, and DVD's stored as VOB files, I went through the process of migrating all my video data to the NAS, then hooked up the Popbox and Boxee boxes to separate TVs. I also went ahead and purchased the Popobox wifi usb extension via Amazon as well. Setup for the Popbox was a synch. The remote isn't very aesthetically pleasing, but it works.
Getting through setup, I gave it time to sync metadata with the contents from the NAS. This didn't take very long seeing as my library is still fairly small (3 TV series's in their entirety, 5 or 6 MKV films). It did a great job figuring out big shows like Mad Men, but newer shows like The Kennedy's and Top Gear Specials didn't quite show up right. For some reason it thought Top Gear had something to do with the Taz Manian Devil. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But renaming files I'm sure can help solve this problem.
Accessing the files were easy, but the UI is extremely clunky. Multiple times I'd get hung up going to 'Settings' then being unable to navigate away from it to other sections of the UI. For some reason elements remain persistant even after backing out of them causing a poor experience.
On the other hand, plugging in the Boxee Box, while more expensive was a lot easier of an experience. It's a better UI, but honestly not the best. I still prefer the ATV UI over these boxes, and still prefer PLEX or XBMC even over Boxee's own interface. The remote is great, but often lacking since hitting the back button sometimes takes you where you didn't intend to go.
Media support on both devices are phenomenal though. So DIVX, MKV, h.264, VOB, really whatever you throw at either of these boxes it plays extremely well including 720p content. I noticed no stutter or hiccups over WIFI (Wireless G), all streaming from the wired NAS. So really if you're looking for a simple box to just play content on your large screen it's great.
Also if you're on OS X, using Majestic (Mac App Store), you can run your computer as a DLNA server and stream content directly to these boxes which also is convenient for quicker access to recently acquired content.
Hope this helps, questions, feel free to ask.
I prefer a Boxee Box . I recently purchased the ZyXEL NSA221 2-bay Network Attached Storage and Media Server NAS Media server, 2x2TB Western Digital drivers, a PopBox and a Boxee box to see what provided the best media home setup. Here's what it comes down to.
The PopBox is a great alternative to Boxee simply because it's DLNA compliant, and works right off the bat with ZyXEL NAS. Awesome. No Netflix support, and no included wifi were slight deal killers, but I also own an ATV2 and figured Boxee supporting Netflix would offset this need.
For clarification, I have two 40 inch LCDs, one in the bedroom, one in the living room. Both are 1080p, 120hz. Both hooked up to a simple 2.1 audio system.
Popbox does a great job automatically seeing content on the NAS, understanding it and embedding the proper meta data and art for it. I should also clarify most of the content and media used on it was strictly video. Using iTunes and iPhoto the Apple TV 2 so far has provided the best solution for all other media but video.
So with my library of 720p MKV, and DVD's stored as VOB files, I went through the process of migrating all my video data to the NAS, then hooked up the Popbox and Boxee boxes to separate TVs. I also went ahead and purchased the Popobox wifi usb extension via Amazon as well. Setup for the Popbox was a synch. The remote isn't very aesthetically pleasing, but it works.
Getting through setup, I gave it time to sync metadata with the contents from the NAS. This didn't take very long seeing as my library is still fairly small (3 TV series's in their entirety, 5 or 6 MKV films). It did a great job figuring out big shows like Mad Men, but newer shows like The Kennedy's and Top Gear Specials didn't quite show up right. For some reason it thought Top Gear had something to do with the Taz Manian Devil. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But renaming files I'm sure can help solve this problem.
Accessing the files were easy, but the UI is extremely clunky. Multiple times I'd get hung up going to 'Settings' then being unable to navigate away from it to other sections of the UI. For some reason elements remain persistant even after backing out of them causing a poor experience.
On the other hand, plugging in the Boxee Box, while more expensive was a lot easier of an experience. It's a better UI, but honestly not the best. I still prefer the ATV UI over these boxes, and still prefer PLEX or XBMC even over Boxee's own interface. The remote is great, but often lacking since hitting the back button sometimes takes you where you didn't intend to go.
Media support on both devices are phenomenal though. So DIVX, MKV, h.264, VOB, really whatever you throw at either of these boxes it plays extremely well including 720p content. I noticed no stutter or hiccups over WIFI (Wireless G), all streaming from the wired NAS. So really if you're looking for a simple box to just play content on your large screen it's great.
Also if you're on OS X, using Majestic (Mac App Store), you can run your computer as a DLNA server and stream content directly to these boxes which also is convenient for quicker access to recently acquired content.
Hope this helps, questions, feel free to ask.
PopBox 3D Multimedia Player - Black Opinions
Great File Support . The latest firmware is a huge improvement over the original firmware that shipped almost a year ago. It fixes all the major bugs and problems that plagued the original firmware.
The only major thing lacking from this firmware is premium content support from Netflix. I would have given it 5 stars.
It plays DVD videos great over the network in either DVD file folder structure or DVD iso images. It's amazing. It's such a better way to manage and playback DVDs now. All the artwork and information is automatically downloaded OR removed when you want it blasted from your library.
I have not tried any of the 3D capabilities or Blu-Ray playback support other than a few personal HD clips from my camcorder.
It does not play FLV containers yet. This is a minor bug.
This is a great product for anyone who wants to take control of their DVD/Blu Ray library OR use playback of the many standard online video container formats. The device will only get better when they add more premium content and apps.
Great File Support . The latest firmware is a huge improvement over the original firmware that shipped almost a year ago. It fixes all the major bugs and problems that plagued the original firmware.
The only major thing lacking from this firmware is premium content support from Netflix. I would have given it 5 stars.
It plays DVD videos great over the network in either DVD file folder structure or DVD iso images. It's amazing. It's such a better way to manage and playback DVDs now. All the artwork and information is automatically downloaded OR removed when you want it blasted from your library.
I have not tried any of the 3D capabilities or Blu-Ray playback support other than a few personal HD clips from my camcorder.
It does not play FLV containers yet. This is a minor bug.
This is a great product for anyone who wants to take control of their DVD/Blu Ray library OR use playback of the many standard online video container formats. The device will only get better when they add more premium content and apps.
POPBOX RULES!!! . PopBox handles blue-ray isos like a champ. For high quality movie playback this box can't be beat. It will play any format with ease. For TV shows and such, it is a little rough on the sorting and grabbing IMDb data, but again it'll play any format with ease.
Little Box Big Hit . I bought three POPBOX's last year, admittedly the firmware started off a little on the weak side but the folks at syabas have developed this Little Box into a a Big Hit. It is the perfect and simple solution for anyone who wants to organize their media library (movies. photos, music TV shows and etc.)and the apps are also a big plus. It was well worth the wait and investment.
33 Connelly dr
33 Connelly dr
Not for Apple OSX Lion Users . Very excited when I first got the Popbox to stream movies and shows from my iMac to the TV. Was disappointed to find out that Apple no longer supports SMB file sharing in OSX Lion so most of the features of the box are unavailable to the Lion user. There was very little interest and support from Syabas in the problem. I had to find my own solution which was to stream via UpNP using a free media streaming app called Llink (the best one out there).One of the other disappointment was that 2 weeks after I bought the thing the next product was launched, pop box v8, which explains the lack of attention to my issue. I wonder if file sharing for Apple users works on that?One thing to be sure of is that there is little attention to the user and a very small community, just go on their forum. More spam posts and unanswered queries than any real help. Boxee Box, XBMC and WD Live communities are thriving and plenty of help and advice to be had. These communities have or are in the process of fixing the issue. Syabas are not.Bottom line - this is a barely supported product. Zero support for Mac owners.
Not Good For Music . 3 Stars for Movies
1 star for Music and other problemsPopBox is going back... If you want just for movies then this box is OK but if for other stuff then think twice before buying it.I have some movies that the Box Locked on me. Had to reset and one time I lost selection of my computer so I could not add more folders even I could play movie from the computer so the connection was still there. The only way for me was factory reset and when I did that All Apps page disappear No More Apps. The only way to get them back was re-install Firmware which it put back the Apps selection (bug in the Box)The box is making a Database of the directory that you specified to be scan. Movies will go to Movies Section that it could find on IMDB.com so the names are very important of the files. If it not found any Movies then puts it in the Home Movies Section. So know you have a problem if you do want to scan for Home Movies then you will have mixed Movies and Home Movies together. That what happen to me and others.
For home Movies better have a name Of the Files other wise like me, had just number that came from the camera and having over 100 movies I did not know which is which. Selecting a Movie Clip will not help in Information panel. There is no sub directory with names Of the Movies That I took just Like I keep On the Computer.When comes to the pictures it has to scan the Directory that you specified for search then will make an Album (Directory) type with first Picture showing and when you open it there will be no Thumbnails in it just a line of the name, by selecting the file it will show on the right side a picture but not to much information with it.
You can select to view All pictures then you will see Thumbnails.When you just want to look a pictures let say from USB or Share network with out scan you will only see name no Thumbnails or any other information. To see it you have to open it. The same thing goes for Movies or Music.For Music there is no player in it You can play song, Album but you will not see any information for the song that plays so if you playing a lot of song there would not be any Info for that song that plays and if you get out from the selection screen there is no way to go back to Playing Now section. It does not have one. No Random Play or any other stuff that player should have.It will create an Album covers If you got ID For it. And you can display by Album, Artist, Song and Genre. No YearBut the display is Buggy. I select a Artist (Queen) and I should have 3 pages of the Albums display (12 Albums By Page)but I got 4 pages. First two pages was OK then the third one had wrong Albums display and fourth one had one album of Queen. Going back to first page the albums start disappearing so first page was not what it should be then going back to fourth page and then go to first one All Albums of Queen disappeared.Apps where OK but not perfect. No Netflix or Hulu. I personally don't care for them. My TV has the Apps that I want.There is a lot of Bugs in the Box.
The Pages are bad too. If you have a lot of pages like I have there is no way to go page by page that easy.Let say you have 300 pages Of something Going page by page you can't do it. Pressing going up one time it will put you on 300 page Pressing down one time it will put you on the first page. To move let say to page 150 and you are on page one what you have to do is hold up button for couple seconds and on the upper right corner you will see a page like 1 of 300 pages. When you see that now you have to keep pressing the up button (150 times) until you will see 150 of 300 pages then let go the button and it will put you to that page. Now you want to go to page 151 guess what? You have to start from beginning like you did for page 150. Going down would be the same thing.
You Can Scroll Thumbnails one by one But that would be a long way to go..... and I'm not sure what will happen to the view just like it happen with music pages.There is no Delete a file in the box and removing it from the computer is not removing it from the Database. They do have it re-scan future in it but it's not working for this. The only way is to take the database to the computer and with optional software you can modified the database, other Option is delete the Scan Directory from the Box and then Re-scan it. That would take long time if you have a lot of files in the selected folder. So if you have a lot of pictures or music files that scan will take a long time and just think if you move, delete or rename files on the computer what will happen on the Popbox 3D (nothing) Just Trouble.
1 star for Music and other problemsPopBox is going back... If you want just for movies then this box is OK but if for other stuff then think twice before buying it.I have some movies that the Box Locked on me. Had to reset and one time I lost selection of my computer so I could not add more folders even I could play movie from the computer so the connection was still there. The only way for me was factory reset and when I did that All Apps page disappear No More Apps. The only way to get them back was re-install Firmware which it put back the Apps selection (bug in the Box)The box is making a Database of the directory that you specified to be scan. Movies will go to Movies Section that it could find on IMDB.com so the names are very important of the files. If it not found any Movies then puts it in the Home Movies Section. So know you have a problem if you do want to scan for Home Movies then you will have mixed Movies and Home Movies together. That what happen to me and others.
For home Movies better have a name Of the Files other wise like me, had just number that came from the camera and having over 100 movies I did not know which is which. Selecting a Movie Clip will not help in Information panel. There is no sub directory with names Of the Movies That I took just Like I keep On the Computer.When comes to the pictures it has to scan the Directory that you specified for search then will make an Album (Directory) type with first Picture showing and when you open it there will be no Thumbnails in it just a line of the name, by selecting the file it will show on the right side a picture but not to much information with it.
You can select to view All pictures then you will see Thumbnails.When you just want to look a pictures let say from USB or Share network with out scan you will only see name no Thumbnails or any other information. To see it you have to open it. The same thing goes for Movies or Music.For Music there is no player in it You can play song, Album but you will not see any information for the song that plays so if you playing a lot of song there would not be any Info for that song that plays and if you get out from the selection screen there is no way to go back to Playing Now section. It does not have one. No Random Play or any other stuff that player should have.It will create an Album covers If you got ID For it. And you can display by Album, Artist, Song and Genre. No YearBut the display is Buggy. I select a Artist (Queen) and I should have 3 pages of the Albums display (12 Albums By Page)but I got 4 pages. First two pages was OK then the third one had wrong Albums display and fourth one had one album of Queen. Going back to first page the albums start disappearing so first page was not what it should be then going back to fourth page and then go to first one All Albums of Queen disappeared.Apps where OK but not perfect. No Netflix or Hulu. I personally don't care for them. My TV has the Apps that I want.There is a lot of Bugs in the Box.
The Pages are bad too. If you have a lot of pages like I have there is no way to go page by page that easy.Let say you have 300 pages Of something Going page by page you can't do it. Pressing going up one time it will put you on 300 page Pressing down one time it will put you on the first page. To move let say to page 150 and you are on page one what you have to do is hold up button for couple seconds and on the upper right corner you will see a page like 1 of 300 pages. When you see that now you have to keep pressing the up button (150 times) until you will see 150 of 300 pages then let go the button and it will put you to that page. Now you want to go to page 151 guess what? You have to start from beginning like you did for page 150. Going down would be the same thing.
You Can Scroll Thumbnails one by one But that would be a long way to go..... and I'm not sure what will happen to the view just like it happen with music pages.There is no Delete a file in the box and removing it from the computer is not removing it from the Database. They do have it re-scan future in it but it's not working for this. The only way is to take the database to the computer and with optional software you can modified the database, other Option is delete the Scan Directory from the Box and then Re-scan it. That would take long time if you have a lot of files in the selected folder. So if you have a lot of pictures or music files that scan will take a long time and just think if you move, delete or rename files on the computer what will happen on the Popbox 3D (nothing) Just Trouble.
Plays everything you throw at it lots of value for the price . This little box may not be the best out there but for its price and format support there is nothing else that beats it. I have bought three of these so far with no major issues. The interface for entering text (such as network names, ips and searches) is a pain but once you get it to work you won't have to touch it much. Using NFO files with URLs from IMDB for your movies will make your media library a lot more accurate than if you just use movie names and works beautifully. The new 3D option comes in handy now that software like DVDFab are integrating 3D ripping and conversion to their suites. As far as I know there aren't many media players supporting 3D at this time so it makes it stand out.
Bang for the buck . For the size and price of the box its all I needed to complete my home theater. The product started off a little rocky but after a few firmwares it has become a solid media player. Plays all of the media I throw at it and is easy enough for the family to use.
Cons Review
Buy the Boxee Box . I've owned this for 2 months now. It took a little bit of setup for it to find my NAS but after messing with it for a little bit it did eventually recognize it. It then scanned my 2TB drive and created a front end interface with images and descriptions from IMDB. This took a long time but I was happy that it worked when it was finally finished. It wasn't able to match all file names to their IMDB data but you can manually search and fix this so again no big deal there. But, the IMDB data is stored on a 2gig Sd card. When you move files or rename them or remove them there is supposed to be a scanning process that updates the SD card. It seems to add new files but doesn't seem to remove all of the deleted/moved/updated files. There is a way to run this process manually but I just keep getting an SD card error when I run it. I have over 90 pages of movies list but can't get past the first 38. I can use the file system to browse them and play them but the user interface is what I paid for and it just stopped working. More importantly check out the popbox forums before you buy. Try to sign up for the forum. It's closed. They don't want new customer feedback!!! They keep promising new software updates that are always late if they come at all. The last one is over 3 months overdue. Netflix is NEVER going to work on this. It would be nice if Amazon streaming video would work but I don't have much hope for that. A friend has the Boxee box and they're constantly releasing new features. It supports all of the same file formats as this does (except ISO). If it wasn't too late, I would return it an buy the Boxee box. Learn from my mistake!!!!!
Product Image
Feature PopBox 3D Multimedia Player - Black
- Support for stereoscopic 3D video using a compatible 3D television
- Access popular online videos, music and social sites
- Download cover art and information for your media library from the internet
- Playback your digital media library with the largest codec library supported on any settop device
- Use the setup wizard for easy installation and configuration
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Product Details
EAN : 0892002002201UPC : 892002002201
MPN : PopBox 3D
Brand : PopBox
Color : Black
Weight : 3 pounds
Height : 3 inches
Length : 12 inches
Width : 7 inches
Binding : Electronics
Manufacturer : Syabas Tech. Incorporated
Model : PopBox 3D
Publisher : Syabas Tech. Incorporated
Studio : Syabas Tech. Incorporated
Where To Buy
You can buy PopBox 3D Multimedia Player - Black on Amazon . Click here to Read More
