DragonTech ioBox NMT reviewed

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

I just read the review posted here http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30878/80/


This NMT is exactly the same as my old popcorn A100 ..... this is like last years product imho.

Popcornhour has developed much more recently in their new up coming release C200.

Their current product already available is the A110 which is a big refinement over the original A100. The A110 notably can passthrough dts, HD audio and all those other stuff to your own AV/Receiver.

If you want to review the best media player on the market, try and review the Popcornhour C200 as soon as it comes out :X

[Rob W]

This article comes at a great time for me because I'm considering buying a second networked media player. My first player is the DVICO TViX R-3310 and I'm very happy with it. The internal drive on the TViX unit uses NTFS while the internal drive in the ioBox 100HD uses EXT3. I'm interested to know the transfer speeds that I could expect for copying movie files between the ioBox and a Windows PC using either USB or LAN (via FTP).

To get some baseline data points for the TViX, I copied a VOB file (1,073,739,776 Bytes) between my PC (Win XP SP3) and the TViX over a 1Gbps LAN and over USB. The results were:

USB (direct connect):

TViX to PC
1,073,739,776 Bytes in 40 sec (26.8 MB/s)

PC to TViX
1,073,739,776 Bytes in 44 sec (24.4 MB/s)

Wired LAN (via FTP):

TViX to PC
1,073,739,776 Bytes in 4:14 or 254 sec (4.2 MB/s)

PC to TViX
1,073,739,776 Bytes in 4:44 or 284 sec (3.8 MB/s)

Can anyone tell me what transfer rates I could expect from the ioBox 100HD (or the Popcorn Hour A-110)?

Thanks,

-Rob

[GizmoDaddy]

Hi, guys...

The ioBox-100HD is in the same generation of NMTs as the Popcorn Hour A-110. The latest generation is the Popcorn Hour C-200, however, no firm date has been set for availability. If you haven't pre-ordered already, the wait is likely to be a month or more once they start to roll off the lines.

Although the ioBox-100HD is comparable to the A-110, there are a few key advantages to its design:

* The ioBox-100HD has both optical and coax S/PDIF outputs. The A-110 does not offer a coax output.

* Better heat dissipation.

* The ioBox-100HD has a 6-layer main board. The Popcorn Hour A-110 has a 4-layer board. The use of a 6-layer board enhances the stability of the player. It allows the ioBox-100HD to support a wider range of hard drives. For example, some Samsung and Hitachi drives which are not supported by the Popcorn Hour A-110 function perfectly with the ioBox-100HD.

* The USB slave port is located on the front of the player for increased convenience.

* Dragontech recently added the ability to completely power off the unit via remote. Other NMTs (including the A-110) will enter a "standby" mode via remote.

Regarding transfer speeds, I received this directly from Dragontech's tech support:

USB Slave (ver 2.0)

PC to ioBox-100HD
686,082,048 bytes in 24.94 seconds (26864.55Kbytes/sec) [26.2 MB/s]

ioBox-100HD to PC:
686,082,048 bytes in 22.49 seconds (29791.11Kbytes/sec) [29.1 MB/s]


FTP (Wired LAN)

PC to ioBox-100HD
686,082,048 bytes in 86.75 seconds (7908.73Kbytes/sec) [7.7 MB/s]

ioBox-100HD to PC
686,082,048 bytes in 113.09 seconds (6066.53Kbytes/sec) [5.92 MB/s]


Note: ioBox-100HD with firmware 090203 & NMT 090116, HDD is Seagate 250GB

[daskino]

the apple tv is a dated device, but it does have a great UI, but since it lack support for most video codecs of 720 and up it should not be a part of any comparison besides ui , but nice to see smallnetbuilder picking up on the media player arena.

Hi-
Very nice article.

One thing could be improved, though:

>> But as mentioned, the downside to this model is that the Movie Jukebox has to be on the server-side, which means running a separate computer just to serve content to the ioBox.

From what I've read, you can generate static files which are saved to the NMT's hard drive. See this guide for an example: http://www.amperordirect.com/pc/r-re...1000_YAMJ.html

So... no need to have a server PC running once this is done.