We haven’t heard much lately out of Syabas, the company behind the $130 PopBox media appliance (and Popcorn Hour). When announced, back at CES 2010, I was pretty fired up given their lineage and the demo I received. However, the streamer launched later than planned… with a variety of performance issues and lacking previously advertised premium content, like Netflix.
The PopBox is one of those products which just couldn’t bring ourselves to review… even though we purchased it outright. We blog the gear that motivates us, and the Popbox hasn’t been very good. It regularly remains unplugged, with similar digital media duties more adeptly handled by the Roku and the WDTV Live Plus. Yet, we do periodically check in on the forums. Which is where we discovered a recent firmware update that enables 3D video playback:
The PopBox now supports MKV3D and other 3D Side-by-Side or Top-and-Bottom videos. When connected to a 3D capable television set, you can enjoy movies and videos in 3D.*Note: Does not support Blu-ray 3D content.
Related, Syabas originally marketed two versions of the PopBox (one with WiFi capabilities), but they’ve revised their lineup to now offer a single rebranded model: the PopBox 3D. (For those so inclined, a wireless adapter is available for $20.) A company rep indicates there is no hardware difference, that the 3D capabilities are baked into the new software.
Lastly, while Popbox missed out on the entire 2010 baseball season, their MLB.tv app is also now available.
This looks like a pretty sizable update, and so far the response has been positive. We’ll probably dust off our Popbox for another look.
Dave,
Funny enough reading your comments about purchasing outright but not being motivated to review is exactly what happened to me as well!! Mine has been kept relatively unplugged but I have been messing around with it of late due to the updates and the 3D. It is a much better product then when first released, so I am finally going to put together a long overdue review. There is also a flash based jukebox (Eversion YAMJ) that I have been testing that was released about a month ago:
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2011/03/31/eversion-flash-based-yamj-skin-released-for-the-popbox/
Cheers
Damian
I felt the same way about my Logitech Revue GooleTV box. I didn’t want to review it as it was so bad. :)
I really dig the new firmware. It fixed a few bugs they were pretty annoying.
I love the supported formats. It will play almost anything you throw at it. The media library was updated a bunch to support better indexing and sorting (and removing!) of networked content.
I think the device would have been a much bigger hit had it shipped with THIS firmware AND Netflix a year ago. Oh well, all in the past now. I hope it can keep chugging along and build support.
I hope the perception is not the reality with some of the earlier attitude and reviews.
Thank god they finally god 3D support. That was probably what was holding it back.
Joke.
Since Scott mentioned the Revue, I have to add how funny I found the whole Coachella thing–they advertised the thing heavily–watch it live on Youtube on your Google TV and then it turned out there was some codec problem and you couldn’t actually watch it on your Google TV devices at all. And this was with Youtube!