Level1 Powerline Bridge incl. 6 port switch
Wow, this one looks like a really well-thought-out product!
We have only one power plug behind the TV and hooking up an extension cord would most likely slow down the connection. The Level1 device might solve this. Anyone got experiences with it yet? Would love to receive your comments via twitter (www.twitter.com/livesinhd) or email!
Finance your HDMI cable???
I really like redcoon for their prices, but what’s that next to the pictures on their website?
HDMI-Übertragungsrate 10,2 Gbit/s:
Von Fachleuten empfohlene Mindest-Datenübertragungsrate von HDMI-Kabeln für ein kristallklares, scharfes Bild und brillanten Ton für diesen Fernseher.
["Experts suggest this [10,2 Gbit/s] bandwidth for a cristal clear, sharp picture and brilliant sound”]
It’s been known for a while that you don’t need those expensive cables – But redcoon as a retailer suggesting it is just silly. I’m sure redcoon is being well-paid for those recommendations, but aren’t they scaring people away from buying an HDTV set in the first place? “Hey, you’re about to spend 750€ on a TV, but make sure you can also afford that 400€ HDMI cable…”
Just in case you need 20m of HDMI cable, redcoon’s got the perfect financing solution in store for you:
883€? Seriously? By the way: My cheapo 10m cable is doing just fine even with 1080p Blu-Ray at HD sound.
Popcorn Hour A100 First Review
Finally on Friday I could open the box and unwrap my media tank. The guy I bought it from must have treated it very well, the device lookes like new!
So I opened the box and went straight to hooking it up to the TV in the living room. As I haven’t purchased any ethernet-over-powerline kit yet, I was bound to connecting the pch to a wireless access point. For picture and sound transport I used HDMI (what else?). I don’t want to put a hard disk in at least not to store content on it. My vision is to store content in a central place (Nas in the basement). I turned the poppi on (no noise by the way, as there is no fan in it) and boom: There was the blue interface already listing my NAS and its contents. That thrilled me. Playing back content in SD worked flawlessly. Once i cliked the video, it took about 10 seconds to buffer before it would start. Excellent picture & sound.
After playing with the pch for a while, there are a few things I’m not yet 100% happy about, some other things I love:
- HD content can’t be streamed over WiFi, the bitrate is just too high. But I was prepared for that. With a wired ethernet connection HD is working very well.
- No “next picture” button. There seems to be no way to skip to the next picture in a folder. What a shame. No thumbnails either.
- The pch lists all my NAS shares. You can tell it to only look in one share (”media” in my case). However, after hitting return a few times you will be brought back to the network browser, which then lists all shares. Funny, yet annoying: My Linkstation comes with an interface for Buffalo’s Link Theatre. I can view that from the pch but it’s not exactly pretty. I would prefer it if you could set the poppi to only ever look at a specific share.
- Music playback needs improvement. Searching through tracks (fast forward) is not possible.
+ Plays everything. Avi, mpg, Mkv, vob, iso (that’s cool, it looks like you just put in a DVD), …
+ It’s very slick and quiet
+ The remote is clear and snappy. I’m not using a URC (I had problems with a Harmony One in the past, but that’s a different story)
+ The online features are cool (You can access YouTube, Flikr etc. and search using the remote (like with a traditional cellphone)
All together a very simple and effective box. I read that it’s possible to install an alternate interface (YAMG, UMC) but I’m afraid that’s complicated to install and complex in use. “Coverflow” would be nice, but I can’t afford complexity as that would most likely upset the asthetics committee (-> girlfriend). I’m thankful for any tipps and would love to answer your questions. Contact me over twitter or email!
Waiting for my Popcorn Hour
Sunday I had the highest bid on a popcorn hour A100 media tank for 150€ on ebay. Hope it will meet my expectations. I was looking for a device to stream SD and HD content from my Buffalo Linkstation NAS (basement) to a TV (first floor). For the transport, I’m considering a Linksys PLK300 ethernet over powerline kit, as investment for WiFi draft N seems too high + I don’t want the video to be choppy. The linksys is listed with 200 Mbit/s, so I should be good.
Easter break starts on Thursday, so chances are I’ writing up a review next week! Stay tuned!
Hello & Welcome to the lives in HD blog!
just set this up, so if something doesn’t work they way it’s suppose to yet, please let me know and I’ll try to fix it.
I created this website to blog about interesting developments in the home entertainment world and how they make peoples’ lives easier (or do they?). Content will be posted in English language, however there will be some posts that may be relevant mainly to German followers.
Stay tuned and feel free to follow me via services such as RSS and twitter and don’t hesitate to email if you want to share your thoughts or suggestions!
Kalle
