Popcorn Hour’s Networked Media Tank, the A-100, turned out to be an impressive media center box. Now, an updated model, the A-110, has been released to improve on some hardware aspects that its predecessor lacked. Here is a look at the anticipated model refresh.

Design. The A-110 is identical in its shape, materials, and size to its predecessor. It also comes without a hard drive, but it has a designated space inside its box to place one. Where it differs, physically, from its predecessor is that one of the two USB 2.0 ports has been moved to the back — which is a good move for anyone who has a USB device plugged in at all times, and leaves the front one free for plug-and-play devices. In the back there’s also now a USB “slave” port, which will work to connect directly the device to a computer and have it appear as an external hard drive when a storage solution has been added to the NMT. The HDMI port in the back has been updated to 1.3a spec, which is great news to those who have the latest in home theater tech. Internally, the default hard drive adapter is now geared for SATA ones — even if the NMT doesn’t take advantage of the full speed from such connection, it’s a big thumbs-up for the device. And perhaps, the biggest “little” addition to the NMT is the reset button in the front — although you’ll need a clip or something similar to push it. So yes, the NMT has gained some fine upgrades since the last model’s release.


The NMT A-110 (right) is basically identical to the A-100 (left).

Functionality. The Networked Media Tank remains true to its “tank” part of the name, thanks to more media center options than you may imagine. It plays all the popular media formats and even some that are more uncommon. It has advanced networking features such as FTP, UPnP, Bonjour, Windows Media Connect, NAS, BitTorrent… and more, even. The most useful feature, in my opinion, still is the built-in BitTorrent capability, which necessarily requires an internal hard drive. And then, the upgradeable firmware has come a long way since the first NMT arrived, which has improved on all features and overall stability. While it may not a “just plug it in, guy” device like the Apple TV, the user experience has improved by much — although a more technical approach is still needed for advanced features. But definitely — once you get it up and running, it is a media center dream box.


The NMT A-110 (top) only has one front USB port.

Limitations. The processor in the NMT isn’t very powerful, which sometimes means some sluggish menus. But yes, this aspect is mentioned in the Popcorn Hour website, and in the end doesn’t interfere with any of the media you’ll be playing. But something that is definitely a limitation to Apple users is that, since the internal hard drive is formatted as ext2 or ext3, you’ll have some problem mounting it in OS X. But there are some utilities that will get it to work, such as this one. Also, have it present in your mind that the NMT is not capable of playing iTunes store media because of its DRM. I do not mention that last part as a limitation, but as a word of advise, since the iTunes store is one of the most frequented in the world.


The NMT A-110 (top) now has more connection ports in the back (optical audio, USB, USB slave).

Final thoughts. If you’re looking for an alternative to the Apple TV — one that offers more features — around the same price, then the NMT A-110 is definitely one to check out. In other words, the NMT A-110 is one of the best stand-alone media center boxes for the price ($215) and is now available to pre-order in the Popcorn Hour website. But if you’re an iTunes user with more than enough media to drown in, perhaps you’d better consider something else.