Popcorn Hour A400- An HD Media Streamer that Supports Blu-ray 3D

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Earvin

With support for Blu-ray 3D-Video, Full-HD video, several audio and photo codec’s and web content, users can experience their digital media how they want. The Syabas Apps Market, containing over 90 free and premium TV apps, gives users a broad selection of additional entertainment via the web.

The Popcorn Hour A-400 will include some exciting features to enhance the media playback experience. In addition to video metadata and posters, users can now download subtitles directly from the web without having to use a PC. Users can also select 1 of 22 different languages they prefer the information and subtitles to be downloaded in.

The Popcorn Hour A-400 can be upgraded with an internal 2.5 or 3.5-inch hard disk which can be mounted in a HDD quick dock, turning your Popcorn Hour into a
network attached storage device. Users also have the option of using the built in 10/100/1000mbs Gigabit Ethernet port or they can purchase a Wireless N Wi-Fi
dongle. SD card reader, HDMI1.4 connector and eSATA interface are also included.

The innovative products by Syabas enable consumers to enjoy a wide assortment of content including home videos, photos, music and online movies. With access to the Syabas Apps Market, users can also enjoy all the latest content on popular services such as YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter, Howcast, Weather Bug and more.

3D Blu-ray Ripper 20% Purchase Link (Valid till Sep 20, 2012)

What does a 3D Blu-ray Ripper do:
It lets you gets Blu-rays off the disc and turn the movies into free videos, so that they can be streamed by NAS devices (like Popcorn Hour A400) and played on HD media players.

Posted in PopCorn Hour Networked Media Tanks, Popcorn Hour A-400 | Tagged | Leave a comment

Apple TV 5.0.1 update rolls out, brings HD iTunes previews and a few fixes

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Earvin

Image

Apple TV firmware update News from Engadget:

Second and third generation Apple TV boxes have a new software update to keep an eye out for, and now that the changelog has been posted for 5.0.1 we can see what it brings. According to this screen grab from Apple’s support page, the update adds HD previews for TV shows and movies in the iTunes store, and fixes issues affecting AirPlay, Home Sharing, Netflix and more. Of course, FireCore warns jailbroken fans to stay away from the update button for now, all others should get a prompt on their hockey puck sooner rather than later.

Related Post:
Get Blu-ray into iTunes for Streaming to Apple TV 3 with 5.1 sound
iTunes 10.6 brings 1080p movies- equal to Blu-ray image quality?
Review: Apple TV 3rd Generation and 1080p movies playback
The New Generation Apple TV (ATV 3) does 1080p Streaming and Playback

Posted in Apple TV | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Get Blu-ray into iTunes for Streaming to Apple TV 3

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Earvin

It was not just iOS device users getting the 3rd generation iPad  in this March. Apple also released Apple TV 2012, which support up to 1080p movies playback and stream.  Feel like watching Blu-ray with the 3rd Gen Apple TV?  Just rip Blu-rays  and encode movies to 1080p at 6mbps+. Follow the guide below rip Blu-rays to Full HD 1080p MP4 files that play even sharper in iTunes than the 1080p downloads.

System Requirements for ripping Blu-ray to iTunes and streaming 1080p to Apple TV

  • Windows 7 or Mac OS X 10.5/10.6/10.7/10.8
  • Compatible Blu-ray Disc Drive
  • Blu-ray Ripper software
  • 2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo or faster processor
  • At least 2 GB of RAM
  • iTunes 10.6 or later
  • A video driver that supports HDCP for Windows PC
  • A display that supports HDCP with a screen resolution of 1280 x 800 or higher
  • Apple TV 3rd generation

Step-by-step guide for ripping Blu-ray movies for Apple TV 3  with 1080p HD quality
1. Make sure your Blu-ray Disc drive is well connected with computer, and put a source Blu-ray Disc to the BD drive. Mac is lacking of Blu-ray support and you need to add an external BD drive that is compatible with Mac.

2. Have Blu-ray Ripper installed on your computer. Pavtube is recommended.
Download link:
Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper for Windows (Windows 7, Vista, XP compatible)
Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper for Mac (Mac OS X 10.8, 10.7, 10.6, 10.5 compatible)

3. Run the Blu-ray Ripper. Press “Load Disc” icon to import Blu-ray movie. The software requires network connection to decrypt Blu-ray so keep your network wired.
bluray to itunes 1080p

Continue reading →

Posted in Apple TV, Streaming | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The way turning Mac Pro into a Blu-ray Disc Player/Burner

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Earvin

One thing that has really been disappointing Mac users  is the missing of Blu-ray support.  Two years passed since Jobs said NO to Blu-ray that “Bluray [Dsic] is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD – like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats.” iTunes Store videos jumps from 720p to 1080p, but Blu-ray is still unavailable to Mac users.  Apple threw Mac Pro owners a bone in 2011 when they added Blu-ray authoring and burning support to Final Cut Pro X, Final Cut Pro 7, and Compressor 4. But that’s not enough for authoring Blu-ray on Mac Pro. To have your Mac burn and play Blu-ray disc, it still  requires some more devices and applications.
How to turn your Mac Pro into a Blu-ray Disc Burner:

Add a compatible Blu-ray Disc drive to Mac Pro (MCE 12X Blu-ray Recordable Drive recommended);

Author/burn Blu-ray Disc with proper editing/burning software (e.g. Final Cut Pro X, Compressor 4, Roxio’s Toast 11 Titanium Pro, etc).

How to turn your Mac Pro into a Blu-ray Player:

  1. Add a compatible Blu-ray Disc drive to Mac Pro (MCE 12X Blu-ray Recordable Drive recommended);
  2. Download and install an universal media hub for playing unprotected Blu-ray contents (PLEX recommended).

Commercial Blu-ray Disc is still unavailable to Mac. If you want to play commercial Blu-rays, you need to get a workable Blu-ray Ripper application that can crack BD protections and back up Blu-ray to Mac HDD first (Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper for Mac recommended). Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray Playback Solutions, Mac | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

iTunes 10.6 brings 1080p movies- equal to Blu-ray image quality?

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Earvin

It was not just iOS device users getting the 3rd generation iPad and Apple TV last month. Apple also released iTunes 10.6 the same day with iPad event and bring in 1080p contents to iTunes Store. The renewed iTunes store now offers HD content in both 720p and 1080p. Reviews pointed out that iTunes 1080p video looks better, saves space using better H.264 compression. Now the question is, does iTunes 1080p downloads presents crystal clear quality as Blu-ray Disc movies do? The good folks at Ars Technica tested out the film 30 Days of Night, and come to the conclusion that “while iTunes isn’t going to topple Blu-ray for quality, downloading a couple of films or TV shows from Apple’s 1080p-ified Store will still be more than satisfactory in terms of quality” (1080p video smackdown: iTunes vs. Blu-ray).

If you’re more into video quality, an advice here for you is to rip the  Blu-rays by yourself, and encode movies at higher bitrate. And better still the rip is DRM-free and can be transferred to an Android tablet like Asus Transformer Prime and Galaxy Tab 10.1. (Read more for how to rip Blu-rays to Full HD 1080p MP4 files that play even sharper than the iTunes 1080p downloads. )

Posted in iTunes | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

GPU-Accelerated encoding with AMD APP (formerly ATI Stream): Faster video converting/DVD & Blu-ray ripping

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Earvin

AMD APP(Accelerated Parallel Processing) stands alongside Nvidia CUDA as one of the two most prevalent GPU computing platforms available today. Initially known as ATI Stream, the AMD APP is a set of advanced hardware and software technologies that enable AMD graphics processors (GPUs), working in concert with the system’s central processors (CPUs), to accelerate enabled applications beyond traditional graphics and video processing.

How does AMD APP stack up? You might have been impressed with its clear video playback and fast game play and realistic physics effects. But wait, there’s still something you should have a try with- the AMD APP accelerated encoding. Let’s explore how effective AMD Radeon HD graphics are when it comes to video transcoding:

Test 1. AMD Radeon HD6370 (GPU)vs. AMD Dual- Core E2-3200 processor(CPU)

Test 2. AMD Radeon HD 5800 (GPU) vs. Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K (CPU) Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray ripping/authoring/playing apps, Video Converter | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Review: Apple TV 3rd Generation and 1080p movies playback

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Earvin

If there is a best HD media player for 2012, it must be the Apple’s new released 3rd generation Apple TV (known as Apple TV 2012).  The real reason to get excited about the new Apple TV (and to read this overview, frankly) is to find out how Apple’s 1080p content looks. We’ve been Blu-ray fanatics since the early days and for years have had a hard time enjoying non-disc movies owing to the constant distractions posed by bad picture quality. Vudu’s HDX titles have always been the exception, along with Zune Video on the 360. So we’re happy we now have another choice for high-quality, full HD video.

We rented a few 1080p movies and the one that really left an impression was Inglourious Basterds. Having watched it on Blu-ray more times than we care to admit, we didn’t hesitate to rent it for $3.99 from Apple ($1 less than Vudu’s HDX) and switch obsessively the HDMI inputs our Blu-ray player and Apple TV was connected to. Watching a number of familiar scenes on both and sitting unusually close to our 60-inch 1080p Pioneer Kuro, we were hard-pressed to spot any differences. Most impressive was the lack of noticeable compression artifacts in the background of dark scenes, or during, say, explosions. Continue reading →

Posted in Apple TV, Reviews | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Best 5 Blu-ray Rippers 2012 Review| Side-by-Side Comparison Chart and Review

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Earvin

Wanna pick up a Blu-ray Ripper and not knowing which one to choose? We collect the best Blu-ray rippers on market and compare them side-by-side with reviews as well for your reference:

2012 Best Blu-ray Ripper Side-by-Side Comparisons and Reviews

Top Blu-ray Rippers Ranking and Review:

No. 1 Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper – Excellent

The good: Not any other Blu-ray Ripper can do with all kinds of BD/DVD sources: protected and unprotected Blu-ray Disc, BDMV folder, BD ISO, physical DVD, VIDEO_TS folder, DVD ISO and IFO file. Using the “Full Disc Copy” feature, you can preserve the Blu-ray’s original file structure. Insert the Blu-ray disc, click on the “Full Disc Copy” button, and select a folder to copy to. Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray Ripper reviews, DVDfab, PS3, Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper, Pavtube DVD Ripper, Reviews | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The New Generation Apple TV (ATV 3) does 1080p Streaming and Playback

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Earvin

It looks like we were blind-sided a little by that decidedly iPad-esque invite, because Apple has something more for us — it’s just announced the latest iteration of Apple TV and it can do 1080p video. The new UI inches slightly closer to iOS territory, with a splash of new color and a whole range of third-party apps willing to play with the new box. This includes access to Photo Stream alongside old favorites like Netflix, Flickr and YouTube. Expect improved connectivity to the iCloud (including your movie content) and better integration of your iTunes playlists directly from the refreshed UI. The good news: the price is going nowhere — the new model matches the 2010 version at $99. Continue reading →

Posted in Apple TV, Streaming | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

How do I copy/transfer music and movies to PlayStation Vita (from Win/Mac computer)?

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Earvin

Overall, the PlayStation Vita is not only the most advanced portable gaming system ever made, but also a great media player. Its  dazzling 5-inch (960×544-pixel) OLED touch screen delivers stunning image quality. You can display lists of music, image, and video files stored on your computer and transfer the files to your PS Vita system. You can also transfer music, image,Copy music, images, and videos to your PS Vita system from a computer (Windows® / Mac) . Follow the guide below to copy music and movies to PlayStation Vita and fro.

Preparation work before copying music/videos to PS Vita:

  • Insert the memory card for the PS Vita system into your PS Vita system.
  • Link a PlayStation®Network account with your PS Vita system.
    If you have a PlayStation®Network account that was created on another device such as a PS3™ system or a computer, you can sign in using that account.
  • Connect your computer to the Internet.
  • Install Content Manager Assistant on your computer.
    Download Content Manager Assistant from the following website:
    http://cma.dl.playstation.net/cma/
  • Check PS Vita supported formats to make sure your source videos/music be compatible with  PS Vita.
Procedures for PS Vita file transfer:
1.On the computer, check that Content Manager Assistant is installed and started. Continue reading →
Posted in PS Vita | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment