Dreambox as a media center

srv1973

Dear all,

My current PVR receiver (old topfield) is slowly breaking down (something wrong with the CI slot according to the distributor) and it's time to start looking at something new. An HD receiver seems only logical these days (even though the only dish I currently have is pointed to Nilesat which doesn't have HD channels yet).

At the same time I'm very interested in getting a media center STB under my TV, such as the Popcorn Hour A-110. That STB has the ability to play 1080p(i?) h.264 encoded media files in mkv containers.

It strikes me that the hardware of the dreambox 8000 and the popcorn hour A-110 isn't that much different. The popcorn hour (PCH) has a sigma designs SMP8635 processor at <300MHZ. The DB8000 has a faster(?) PowerPC CPU at ~800MHz including hardware acceleration for H.264 etc. So theoretically the dreambox should be possible to act as a media player. Yet I can't find any indication on the internet that the DB8000 supports a similar list of containers/codecs as the PCH.

_http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=productspec&item_id=6


My ideal box would be some sort of combination between the dreambox and the PCH: high-quality HD satellite tuner(s), internal storage, PVR functionality, media center functionality, possibly syncing with itunes, embedded DVD/BluRay player (check out the PCH C-200!). Any chance the missing pieces could be added to the DB8000 via software updates?

Regards

srv1973

... in capabilities...

HB13DISH

Use Popcorn or similar media players instead of 8000HD.
The cost is fractional and the file format support list is so much more than DB.
I bought an Mvix model because I needed *.wmv support, something that the DB can't do.