With an all-new interface the Popbox takes the Popcorn Hour into a more general consumer friendly form with an all newinterface and SDK, YouTube access, support for 100Mbps bitrate 1080p video and more — just not the Netflix access (at least not yet). The $129 takes us one step closer to the 2010 media streamer battle.
Check out the Popbox media streamer at Amazon, on sale for just $129.99 and shipping now.
Viewsonic NexTV $129.99
Viewsonic first showed us the NexTV VMP75 media streamer media streamer last month,and the device is now shipping from both Amazon and Newegg. According to Review Horizon, however, the official release date is July 19th, although it seems possible you could receive it before then if you’ve already pre-ordered the device or get your order in soon.
As for the device itself, it’s still listed at $129.99, and will give you the usual Netflix streaming, and support for playback of content from either your home network or an attached drive. Media streamers, in essence, are nothing more than low power, made for TV nettops. Think of it as your traditional HTPC nettop lite!
A few media streamers are popping up at the moment, one of which is the Buffalo’s new LT-V100 Link Theater. You may be asking, what’s media streamer. Well, think of it as a nettop dedicated solely to the purpose of streaming video content to your TV or monitor.
This Buffalo is a little box offering HDMI and composite video plus optical and good ‘ol 3.5mm audio outputs, able to manage 1080p when streaming content either over Ethernet or pulling it right from USB-based storage. It plays anything from RealVideo to Matroska, naturally with various flavors of MPEG, WMV, and Xvid along the way. It’ll also do images and plenty of audio formats as well. And the price, about ¥11,500 — about $130 — if you live in Japan.
Norco’s BIS-6620
Norco might be better known for their server products and acessories, but they also have a line of miniature computers. The first NorcoBIS-6620 has an Intel Atom Z5xx processor, GMA 500 graphics, and VGA output. Then, second model upped the game with the addition of a DVI output and now the latest Norco BIS-6620 III (PDF link) has an HDMI port for HD video.
In the lateste BIS-6620, you still get an Intel Atom Z5xx Paulsboro based chip with integrated GMA 500 graphics that should be able to handle 720p and some 1080p HD video playback. There’s room for up tohe PC 1GB of RAM and has a 1.8″ hard drive bay. On the back are two legacy PS/2 ports for a mouse and keyboard, 5 USB ports, mic and line jacks, and an antenna for the optional WiFi.There are also CF and SD card slots.
Measuring just 4.7″ x 4.7″ x 1.6″, the BIS-6620 III weighs just 1.1 pound and the nettop is nearly silent with its fanless design.
No word on pricing yet, but we’re guessing it should come in somewhere between $200-300.
The Logitech’s Revue Google TVbox showed up at the FCC today thanks to Logitech’s OEM partner, Gigabyte. Gigabyte’s FCC filings show us some interesting internal photos that give us a good look at the Revue’s innards. There’s no surprise that the box is essentially a nettop.
The Revue’s motherboard is dominated by its processor, an Intel Atom 1.2GHz which is cooled by a large heatsink. There’s a (hopefully quiet) fan built into the lid of the nettop. The processor also provides hardware video acceleration for HD decoding and 3D graphics. You can’t see much of the Atom, however – it’s completely covered by a heat sink. A fan on the lid of the Revue vents hot air out the right side of the device. The Revue will sport 4GB of memory, which appears to be provided by eight Micron flash modules to the left of the processor. We also see what looks like Hynix SDRAM, to the right of the processor.
No word yet when we’ll see this on the street, or for what price, but we’re optimistic that this will bring the nettop, and the idea of the nettop, to the masses.
Zotac ZboxIntel Atom D510, 1.66 GHz Dual Core |  | Price:$249
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Acer N260GIntel Atom N330 dual core processor, 2gb RAM, HDM |  | Price:$369
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ASUS Eee Box EB1501Intel Atom N330 dual core processor |  | $459
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Acer AspireRevo AR1600With Nvidia Ion Le |  | $199
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