Popcorn Hour C200
Christo van Gemert
You know that guy in the office, the one who always has a hard drive with some movies and TV series on it? Well, chances are he uses something like the Popcorn Hour C200 to play those files.

One of the latest in a line of HD-capable players, the C200 now sports even better video quality, a faster interface, support for an (optional) internal Blu-ray drive and more. The strong user base has even started developing applications for the player, most of which provide even prettier interfaces and easier ways to sort, file and manage your multimedia.

Connecting it to the TV or home theatre system shouldn’t be a hassle; everything from HDMI to optical audio is catered for and it is as easy as finding the right slot to plug the cables in.

We did have some issue with it, mostly to do with some of the advertised features of the device not working. We tried copying files across a network and the C200 just hung for a couple of hours, remaining unresponsive until we had to hard-reset it. We found the Blu-ray backend, which allows you to actually play Blu-ray discs, to be quite unstable.
 
Syabas, the company that makes the player, could say, “we told you so”, as it includes a pamphlet in the retail box, saying that some features may not work because of a short time to market. To us this simply says it was all a rushed job and that really isn’t good.

Despite the software issues though, the hardware is solid. Network access is blazingly fast, USB ports work with almost all external hard drives and the C200 is sexy to look at. After all the software issues are ironed out, the only problem will be the radio frequency remote control – it just doesn’t work that well in areas with lots of WiFi signals.