These two products have both been announced recently and the specs have been published. I have read through the info and been on the NMT forums, but for the life of me, beyond the fact that the Popbox won't have an internal HDD I can't figure out what the differences are between them that would guide a purchasing decision.

The NMT forum has someone explaining several times that the Popbox isn't the replacement for the A-110, the A-200 is, but he never explains what he means. I may sell my A-110 and get a A-200, but I need to understand what it all means.

Anyone have a detailed explanation for a layman?

Software would be my guess. The interface shown on the PopBox homepage is different than the PopcornHour. For one it has Netflix, which is not default on the PH, and with the remote having fewer buttons interacting with a service like that will require something much deferent than the PH. They also mention following your friend tweets with it. Again not on the PH default interface.
At this point there just isn't enough know about the PopBox for a full comparison.

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As IAmZed mentioned, there isn't enough info on the PopBox to know about.

I actually shoudl be getting my A-200 this week. It is basically the C-200 less the BR Rom drive. Keep in mind that if you are using your A-110 to bitstream from standalone m2ts files, you will lose this feature with the A-200. Supposedly Syabas is working on, but nothing yet.

One difference is tha you can use the A-200 as a media server, bittorrents, etc... where this will not be possible with the PopBox. The PopBox will have IMDB scraping and Netflix, of which the A-200 will not have. Also, the PopBox will have advertising built in (to what extent it is hard to tell). We also don't know if using skins like YAMJ/Aeon will work with the PopBox, how is metadata maintained with the PopBox, etc... Hopefully as we get closer to March we will get more details

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Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

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From what I gathered, To allow content like Netflix, the creators of the popcorn series had to lock it down so the 3rd party app developer would feel safer allowing their software to be ported over to this device. But the A-200 is not locked down so you won't get those apps. But at least the box is more hackable. Also the UI is an upgrade.

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Sounds like the Popbox will be less featured / more restrictive.

While Iread that the new UI will show up in both the Popbox and the A-200, I REALLY like my YAMJ/Aeon setup. The inability to deal with the BD streaming isa longer-term showstopper. Hopefully, they will fix that and also figure out how to enable BluRay isos.

No reason for me to rush into anything; I'll just sit on my A-110 for the time being.

What do you mean by BD streaming? Also, there is supposed to be a "lite" feature for BluRay discs. My understanding, you will just have basic menu control witha Blu Ray, but not including anything BD Live related

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Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

BD streaming = BD ISO playback with menus. Just read your review and the A-200 looks like it "almost" has the capability.

It has BD Lite, so you get the basic menus. It is not supposed to have full BD menus like the C-200 has, althoug for some reason certain BR ISOs people are getting full menus???

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin