phiction4 Posted May 12, 2009 Share Posted May 12, 2009 I'm thinking about adding the PH A-110, but I wanted to know if anyone has used or is using it. It looks like a neat product. With that said, does anyone know if there are drivers available? I was talking to someone about coming in and installing it and he telling me that PH is not supported by C4 and in order for him install it he would have to build new drivers, reprogram my system and reconfigure my firewall and some other stuff. Overall, his quote was for 5 hours? The PH only costs $250. I might be crazy and cheap (I've been accused of being worse) but it doesn't make sense to spend $500+ to add a $250 device.I don't care about adding the PH media into the C4 GUI, it would be nice but I don't care if IDoes what this guy is proposing sound right? I've never worked with him before (my original installers, Tweeter, went out of business) so I don't know if this guy is trying to hose me. I have my opinions. I am a Cisco network engineer by profession so I don't need nor will I have this guy touch my network or firewall and I doubt he has any ASA experience anyway.Lastly, if you using PH are you using the plugins like YAMJ? Do you like YAMJ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slemay Posted May 12, 2009 Share Posted May 12, 2009 Well $400 gets you the device integrated (EVA-9150 from Netgear) - but all it's going to do is give you a "NAME" company that has programmers in house developing for it... vs. the PCH which uses a 3rd party company that doesn't listen to it's users for new features. Trust me when I tell you - go with the EVA... I was the biggest advocate for PCH until this guy came out... for the extra $150 it's worth it! I've been so upset with the PCH people for not listening or wanting to work with Control4. It's a good box - but you'll be happier with the Netgear.OH - and FYI - "I" wrote the PCH driver - and it is in the dealer forums at Control4 - so no - you're guy does NOT have to write a driver for it. Plus - if you go with the EVA - that driver is also written... So - add the $400 device and one hour of programming - so it'll be cheaper for ya! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phiction4 Posted May 12, 2009 Author Share Posted May 12, 2009 Is this something you can do remotely? If you wrote the driver for the PH it should be pretty quick. I can give you access to my network? I've looked at the Netgear and I just don't like. I'll probably regret that but if I had a choice I'd prefer the PH. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted May 12, 2009 Share Posted May 12, 2009 The netgear EVA 9150 is slick, I don't know what's not to like. It handles HD well, and it integrates with the Control4 GUI! The other thing I could find that is an advantage for the popcorn hour is the price, but when you factor in the GUI working seamlessly the extra $150 was easy for me to justify.I love my EVA 9150. There is an IP driver already written that works great, plus you have netgear to rely on for any support issues.Also, my EVA9150 was added remotely. My dealer didn't charge me to remote in and add the driver. I made the physical connections, spent 5 minutes on the phone with and it was all done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phiction4 Posted May 12, 2009 Author Share Posted May 12, 2009 I appreciate all of the opinions on the EVA 9150, but I'm not interested in that. I'm more interested in the PH. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecodeman Posted May 12, 2009 Share Posted May 12, 2009 Here's some additional info from other people looking for PH and C4 information.http://www.c4forums.com/search.php?search_id=40966176 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted May 12, 2009 Share Posted May 12, 2009 PCH blows compared to the Netgear. The service, engineering, management SUCK! If you want a PCH then get one, but the GUI sucks.The only good thing about the product is its stable and doesn’t crash like most media boxes. Can I tell you that the PCH sucks! {if you need one ill sell you mine (pch)} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phiction4 Posted May 12, 2009 Author Share Posted May 12, 2009 Once again Matt, I appreciate the feedback, but that's not what I'm looking for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phiction4 Posted May 12, 2009 Author Share Posted May 12, 2009 Codeman you link was a dead link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecodeman Posted May 12, 2009 Share Posted May 12, 2009 Sorry I suppose the search query times out after a while. http://www.c4forums.com/viewtopic.php?id=2852http://www.c4forums.com/viewtopic.php?id=2770http://www.c4forums.com/viewtopic.php?id=2711http://www.c4forums.com/viewtopic.php?id=2763http://www.c4forums.com/viewtopic.php?id=2299 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic@1m Posted May 12, 2009 Share Posted May 12, 2009 Why would you want a product no one recommends? They are a huge piles of crap.On that note... i've got one for sale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted May 12, 2009 Share Posted May 12, 2009 Why would you want a product no one recommends? They are a huge piles of crap.On that note... i've got one for sale.:lol::lol::lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted May 12, 2009 Share Posted May 12, 2009 Once again Matt, I appreciate the feedback, but that's not what I'm looking for.in order for him install it he would have to build new drivers, reprogram my system and reconfigure my firewall and some other stuff. -yes there is a driver available from control4 and as shawn stated he pointed the dealer in the right direction. The PH only costs $250. I might be crazy and cheap (I've been accused of being worse) but it doesn't make sense to spend $500+ to add a $250 device.-he is going into the project aware of the risks, and for the risk if i were a dealer i'd charge more.Lastly, if you using PH are you using the plugins like YAMJ? Do you like YAMJ?-Yes it has plug-in, search there forum: http://www.networkedmediatank.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phiction4 Posted May 12, 2009 Author Share Posted May 12, 2009 Why would you want a product no one recommends? They are a huge piles of crap.On that note... i've got one for sale.The reason I want it is because my brother has had one for about 4 months (he doesn't have a C4 setup) but he loves it. It plays all of the video formats he's run through it and swears by it. I've seen it in action and looks pretty darn good to me. So being that I know him and I respect his opinion I feel pretty good about the PH.To that end, I'm not asking people for their opinions on PH specifically, I'm asking for feedback on how it integrates it with C4. Some of you have been very insigtful and well others... I guess the saying opinions are like @$$holes we all have one, the only problem is some butts are more active than others. In any event I opened this post to get ideas and information so I'll take the good and bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanE Posted May 12, 2009 Share Posted May 12, 2009 One of the reasons it's not as well supported as other options is that when those of us at Control4 who wanted to build a driver for it (and I didn't do it myself) contacted the people at PH, they were disinterested, nay, nearly hostile to making changes to their control protocol to allow Control4 to make it into a well supported media player.Because of that, the integration is sub-par, and nothing can change it short of PH redoing their firmware to give it a better protocol.RyanE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecodeman Posted May 12, 2009 Share Posted May 12, 2009 If you're not integrating it, then you might as well look into appletv, or using boxee on appletv or something along those lines. But we're all c4 users here, and we love what integrates with our system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akg4y Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 Im amazed that everyone here is promoting the 9150... all of the threads earlier when it came out were very negative towards it. There was one person that bought 3 and returned or sold all of them within a week of getting them because he thought they were terrible.I havent used a PCH or 9150, but from what I have read (which is a *lot*) the PCH is an awesome device. Firmware updates are provided often and there is a large support community. The downside is that if you use it you will not get coverart on your touchpanels, but as you said if you use something like YAMJ (which looks awesome) then at least you will have a pretty interface on the TV. I also think you have to use IR control to manipulate it as opposed to IP or RS232. I personally am planning on building an XBMC PC, because all around it seems like the best solution. When the new driver comes out although it will have a licensing fee it should be clearly the winner out of the C4 options. If you dont have any particular special requirements then you can build a perfectly capable XBMC PC for less than $400... $100 all in one mobo, $50 processor, $40 RAM, $25 DVD drive (or blu-ray for more if you need it), $50-100 case + power supply and hard drive (varies). Plus, you'll get coverart on your touchpanels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecodeman Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 That's true but most people dont have the skills and the dealers dont have the time or want to support and build computers to run xbmc, so for a lot of people the Netgear is the logical pick.Me on the otherhand, I personally am using XBMC at home. I'm cheap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kimi Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 I have a PCH and it works great. Very stable and the YAMJ interface is great. The C4 driver does not support getting out of the YAMJ interface though, so that is a problem if you need to attach to more than one NAS. (Maybe Slemay can tell me that I am wrong and tell me what button to push?) In practical terms that means that you will need a very large NAS as your library grows. I am up to a 4TB Buffalo drive and dreading the cost for the next step... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phiction4 Posted May 13, 2009 Author Share Posted May 13, 2009 Im amazed that everyone here is promoting the 9150... all of the threads earlier when it came out were very negative towards it. There was one person that bought 3 and returned or sold all of them within a week of getting them because he thought they were terrible.I havent used a PCH or 9150, but from what I have read (which is a *lot*) the PCH is an awesome device. Firmware updates are provided often and there is a large support community. The downside is that if you use it you will not get coverart on your touchpanels, but as you said if you use something like YAMJ (which looks awesome) then at least you will have a pretty interface on the TV. I also think you have to use IR control to manipulate it as opposed to IP or RS232. I personally am planning on building an XBMC PC, because all around it seems like the best solution. When the new driver comes out although it will have a licensing fee it should be clearly the winner out of the C4 options. If you dont have any particular special requirements then you can build a perfectly capable XBMC PC for less than $400... $100 all in one mobo, $50 processor, $40 RAM, $25 DVD drive (or blu-ray for more if you need it), $50-100 case + power supply and hard drive (varies). Plus, you'll get coverart on your touchpanels.Thanks for coming to my defense of not liking the 9150 and letting everyone know people do actually like the PH besides me. I thought about building a PC but I really don't want to be bothered learning how to manage XBMC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 Im amazed that everyone here is promoting the 9150... all of the threads earlier when it came out were very negative towards it. There was one person that bought 3 and returned or sold all of them within a week of getting them because he thought they were terrible.I havent used a PCH or 9150' date=' but from what I have read (which is a *lot*) the PCH is an awesome device. Firmware updates are provided often and there is a large support community. The downside is that if you use it you will not get coverart on your touchpanels, but as you said if you use something like YAMJ (which looks awesome) then at least you will have a pretty interface on the TV. I also think you have to use IR control to manipulate it as opposed to IP or RS232. I personally am planning on building an XBMC PC, because all around it seems like the best solution. When the new driver comes out although it will have a licensing fee it should be clearly the winner out of the C4 options. If you dont have any particular special requirements then you can build a perfectly capable XBMC PC for less than $400... $100 all in one mobo, $50 processor, $40 RAM, $25 DVD drive (or blu-ray for more if you need it), $50-100 case + power supply and hard drive (varies). Plus, you'll get coverart on your touchpanels.[/quote']Thanks for coming to my defense of not liking the 9150 and letting everyone know people do actually like the PH besides me. I thought about building a PC but I really don't want to be bothered learning how to manage XBMC.8000 – sucks! I would continue to receive lock ups and slow buffering ratio when playing any type of hd content. (Huge fan of h264 mp4 files) PCH – Rocks, as stated above there management and welling to work with manufactures is what sucks. If they would allow integration and work with manufactures then I’d highly recommend this over any product. The other thing that sucks as stated above is there GUI. Yes you can download a telnet client and get the ip back bone to work, but I have seen several test cases where they fried there PCH. So I am not welling to brick mine. I still use mine in another location as I don’t use that tv much. I download all my movies onto an external hdd and plug it into the usb port. I don’t have time nor do I want to create time to run cat5 to that location. 9150 – Same hardware, same chipset as the PCH, and the willingness to work with manufactures is why I pushed you to the Netgear.Either way if you get a PCH, you’ll enjoy it. I just am recommending the Netgear 9150 due to the option of integrating into your control4 system. It is awesome to be able to see cover art, select movie, get the movie information and hit start movie. Rather then going to the PCH and only seeing the text of the movie.You’ll be happy either way! It’s a personal choice. Let us know what you decide and how it works out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILoveC4 Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 Here is my problem with the PCH and why I think the C4 integration is so nice. I have a 400 disc sony DVD changer that is full of movies, and I have another 90 or so movies (growing rapidly) that are in digital form. I don't want to have to look through two different interfaces to find the movie I want to watch. I can go to the GUI and whether it is an actual DVD in the changer, or an .ISO file on a hard drive somewhere, they are listed in what spot and start when I hit play movie. I would hate to have to remember whether the movie I wanted to watch was on disc or not, then select the appropriate source.If you don't use multiple video sources that are distributed this may not be a problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akg4y Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 My single disc DVD player is gathering dust in the basement and I dont yet have a BR player. I just digitized my entire DVD collection and keep the discs as backups and to use in the car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanE Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 I use a combination of MythTV/VLC for playback and my 777 for physical DVDs.Same thing as ILoveC4, I like my kids being able to pick their movie independent of the location.I could start a movie from the other room onto the Great Room TV using the Navigator interface.Do that with PCH! I'm just kidding, I'm sure the PCH is fine if that's what you want.RyanE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic@1m Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 I've got a few PCH in the field. The actually do work pretty well. I had to train customers initially to reboot if PCH froze. I havent had a PCH call for quite a while.Another option, which was listed earlier is AppleTV... running XBMC and Boxee. I've never had to reboot the ATV... and XBMC thru navs works well. Only downside is 1080i/p playback. ATV uses less energy than HTPC, and no PC maintenance. I really do have a PCH for sale if anyone wants it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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