PopBox Owners' Thread: Impressions, Reviews & Tips - Page 129

I want to have my USB hard disk connected to the airport extreme & have Popbox V8 stream from that hard disk. PB is connected via netgear powerline, but can do a bonafide ethernet cabling if needed. Is there anything else I would need?

Got both of my Popbox V8's in on Monday and got one hooked up last night. Already had trouble with the unit. I would get the "Loading..." screen to show up, but after it was fully booted no image would show up on the TV. It appears that the Popbox just doesnt have the output power to send the video signal over HDMI over a long run. It was hooked up through a 50-foot HDMI cable thats been installed and working perfectly for almost 4 years now, but it has always been by AV receiver that pushed the video signal through. I'm hopeful that once I run the Popbox through my receiver, I wont have any display problems. Once I hooked the unit up via HDMI right at my TV, it worked perfectly.

50feet is a long ways to go without amplification. While lower resolutions don't have as much of an issue at a long length, 1080P is more likely to have an issue. At work we always use an amplifier or a switch when we get over 45 feet in length. Since we never know if it will be used with 1080P resolutions. That has help to avoid any issues after installation.

Good to know. If I ever have trouble in the future I'll have to install a balun to go over Cat6 or fiber, but so far so good. Its a 1.3 rated cable, but has been passing 1080p content, 3D content, etc. so far with zero issues with my Pioneer receiver. I'm integrating it into a new Control4 system, should be pretty slick once its done.

Also check that its sending the right signal. if you see the loading screen that means 480p/720p is working over the distance once the loading is done it tries the highest resolution your tv supports, I would connect the v8 with a short cable to a different tv manually set the resolution to 720p under setup then try it again. if it works manually set it to 1080p see if it works, Could just be over the distance its not trying to send right resolution

Is anyone else having issues with FLAC files? My Popbox V8 crashes almost instantly after I select a FLAC file (44.1kHz, 16bit) for playback from local media via the HDMI interface. If I disable audio output on HDMI the unit does not crash, but it doesn't output audio on the SPDIF interface either

I'm running the April 2012 firmware now but I didn't have this problem with the original factory firmware.

Looking for some guidance. I have a couple of the orignal PB's and have not been taking updates to the firmware because of previous issues. I have not been following developments but wondered if I could get a brief status from people on 3 points:

1. Is the current firmware for the V8 device the one to use on the original PB
2. Is that firmware stable or are there still a list of issues somewhere I can look at
3. Is the V8 PB any better?

Thanks. Hap.

1. No the v8 firmware will not run on the popbox3d/original
2. the original popbox is dead its EOL it wont get anymore updates,
3. Yes the v8 is better but it does not have a built in jukebox like the original did you can pull information per movie but its more of a list view with information,

The original popbox was a step child from the start, being made by a US team with the hopes of getting netflix on it, They even had a fully functioning netflix app, if you hack the popbox you will find it hidden in a folder, but somehow lost approval or something so it never came to life and it pretty much killed the popbox,

Thanks.

So the interface for the V8 is non-graphic? Is there anyplace you can see screen shots?

I've been living with the PB since the begining and ripping movies. I was on top of this stuff for a long time but it was working well enough so I left it alone. Now my ripped collection dominates my viewing and playback problems (like suddenly skipping sections) drive us crazy enough to go back to the disc. Any recommendation on a solid alternative? I rip everything with DVDfab and keep it in a native format. I want HD Audio and Video playback and a decent jukebox (doesn't have to be super fancy) and good auto scraping.

guys quick question. I just ordered the popbox 3d.

Will it auto switch my TV to 3D for SBS content like the current popcorn hours? Do I have to add something special to the filename?

My personal suggestion to you, is to not accept the package when its delivered to you. Hopefully that way you don't have to pay the shipping to return it. Popbox 3D is one of the top worse media players out there. If you want 3D get the Mede8er instead, which is probably the best 3D media player out, but still has bugs.

Running SBS content he would have no problems with the popbox3d and if he doesnt use the jukebox the popbox 3d is actually pretty decent player, I use one in a bedroom running eversion and its no different then the v8 in another bedroom, if you want to use the stock interface then yes its junk lol.

Well, hopefully he likes it and doesn't have issues with it.

To answer your question, no special naming. The media player should recognize the file format and play it accordingly.

From what I recall, according to Syabas, you are supposed to stick .3DSBS to the end, such as mymovie.3DSBS.mkv. (you can go to forum.popbox.com to look up the actual latest instructions) However, in practice I find that if the mkv has proper tagging, the popbox [3d] will tell the TV to switch even without renaming. (I actually rename my 3d movies to .mk3d, cause that's what my muxer (mmg) likes to do with 3d movies)

I've noticed that in real-world use, I tend to have problems with full-sbs or full-tb (strobing and skipping), but I play everything over the network. (haven't actually tried full-sbs from an attached drive) I've never had an issue with half-sbs.

I haven't been able to get a 3d iso to play, so I end up ripping everything to mkv.

Oh, and think twice about that purchase. The built-in jukebox is terrible, and it's file structure navigation is pretty much the worst experience I've seen in 15 years. (I ended up building an external web-based app to browse and launch programs, especially since that is the only way to get the playlist queue to work) The popbox [3d] is totally orphaned by syabas, and still has problems requiring frequent power cycles (which can only be achieved by unplugging the damn thing). Something as simple as playing a movie, and stopping (or pausing in some cases) it in the middle can put you in the position of not being to play anything else until you power cycle.

This is a device that is impossible to use by the wife, because of all it's 'issues'. (and we can include the sucky remote in that)

I would say that buying a popbox at this point would be a horrible mistake to make. Although at $130, it is cheap compared to the popcorn hours, or medi8ers.

I'm running an original popbox (aka popbox3d) and don't have any problems with flac, up to 96khz, 6 channel, etc. ('bout the only good thing I'm likely to say about the damn thing)

For 3d stuff it should work if A. the mkv container is flagged as 3d, the ending extension is mk3d or if you have .3DSBS. is in the title, it will switch if any of the 3 conditions are met.

Id like to try YAMJI/Eversion for the first time on my PB 3d. I understand this needs a networked PC to setup which I do have. My library is connected locally via USB to Popbox though. Once setup will I be able to use without PC on all the time? Is all I need to get going including step by step guide/directions included in this 35.9 AIO download provided by accident?
https://github.com/accident12123/eversion/downloads

That is correct. Since you are using a usb setup, you would connect the USB drive to your PC for the scan. and follow the instructions to set player path then when you run yamj tell it to put the jukebox files on your usb drive, on the popbox you will need to go to the market and download the yamj app to make it easier to launch.

Has anyone upgraded the SD card on their popbox to a faster one and noticed significant performance improvement?

OK, wow; did I just discover something new? I was just about ready to give up on my original PopBox; because...you know...it sucks! But I kept it around...mostly because who would buy the damn thing...to do nothing more than play TV-on-DVD rips, and the occasional BD rip in a Bedroom set-up.

GUI is sh*t; movies posters are just clappers (even though, if you go into the title, it's got the correct info and pic there!)...and it never did TV worth a damn. I just posted a thread for a replacement, as I've been off the bleeding-edge for a while. I almost can't believe, no one really had a very good solution for what I was looking for; cheap box, easy to set-up, good TV GUI, and would play the occasional BD rip (no need for full support, or lossless, etc...in the Bedroom).

About the most interesting idea I heard, was try a Pivos XIOS and hack it for XBMC. Yes, that doesn't fit the "easy to set-up" criteria; but I've gone down the XBMC road before, and as long as it wasn't too much of a nightmare, I might have been willing to get my hands dirty again. But before I finally committed, I thought...maybe I should check and see if anyone has found a way to flash this POS. I see there's a way to run YAMJ; that at least helps with the GUI. What about the engine? Any luck there?

Thanks

Some downsides to using yamj on popbox to be aware of are:
subtitles won't work with popbox remote
resume/bookmark function won't work
I personally haven't gotten around to setting it up yet. ( hope its not too hard). II'd be interested in others feedback.
here is setup guide by accident:
https://github.com/accident12123/eversion/wiki
Edited by leiff - 11/29/12 at 12:09pm

I upgraded mine pretty soon after I bought the PopBox. I can't say definitively that it helped, but it seems a little faster. For $10 or whatever the SD card cost me I think it's an easy way to get a small performance boost (even if it's just in my head).

Eversion (the default flash skin for YAMJ) has some support for these;

Players and their abilities:
SDK (formally called YAMJ): This is the player found with apps, It offers a very simple small remote friendly interface with good title and playlist support. However, it does not offer subtitle, audio track or zoom features.
NATIVE: This is the hardware native player built into the unit. For every player except the popbox and popbox 3d this is your normal full featured player with blue colored overlays when you press buttons. This player is also the only one which can start disc rips (iso, video_ts and bdmv). The defaults for those types of videos are this player because of that.

Bookmark/resume works if you're using the SDK player, but you won't be able to get subtitles.
Subtitles work if you're using the NATIVE player (I think by hitting Info and then selecting the subtitle track)

So, you can get one or the other but not both. I don't need subtitles (except hardcoded subs which I normally mux directly into my MKVs) so I opt to use the SDK player for resume support.

YAMJ enhanced my PopBox Experience^10

Hell I feel like if you could the work the PopBox you could probably work any mediastreamer....

There *is* a way to activate subtitles and audio (as well as other stuff) using either a universal remote, or using some api stuff.

To really be convinent with YAMJ/Eversion, you need to get a popcorn hour remote, or a universal remote and program it as a popcorn hour remote.

Otherwise, you can use your computer (or phone) and use telnet to send those remote commands

telnet yourpopboxip 30000

then the following keys:

a = Audio
b = Subtitle
A = Angle (don't recall if this one actually does anything)



or, if, like me, you decide to create a java app to control stuff (I wrote a web app to handle the jukebox queue), this code can be used so send the commands...


String cmd=request.getParameter("cmd");
byte[] b = cmd.getBytes();
Socket ss = new Socket(pophost, Integer.parseInt(remoteport));
try {
ss.getOutputStream().write(b);
} catch (ConnectException e) {
out.print("ERROR: Connect exception"+e);
}
finally {
ss.close();
}

Okay, I've had my popbox 3d for just over a year now. I agree with a lot of the sentiments on this page: it's a ****** UI, slow to update, and support for the product is nonexistent. But here's my problem:

I connect my external hard drive directly into the USB port in the back of the popbox (I've never had a stable enough connection to network my files), but the popbox with cycle between connecting and disconnecting the drive, then will load drive A-1, B-1, etc, before connecting the true identity (My_Passport), disconnecting, connecting for a short enough time to start watching a movie, then disconnecting again. I don't get it. The external hard drives I'm using are WD 1TB and 3TB. The popbox now won't even recognize the 3TB drive at all (I'm in the process of reformatting the drive to remove any hidden partitions to see if that solves it).

Any help would be hugely appreciated!

would happen to me sometimes. I suspect my problem was that my drive was always at maximum capacity and as a result fragments data. Also in my experience 2.5 (laptop drives) are more prone to this. problems stopped for me when I stopped filling drive to capacity all the time and occasionally defrgemented drive

I have been using Popbox 3Ds with YAMJ/Eversion and just got a V8. With the 3Ds, on some whole disc blu-ray rips, I could use the menus, while the V8 only seems to do main movie. Is that correct for the V8 or am I doing it wrong?

I should have mine Saturday if it ships out today and goes 2nd day air Prime