Andre Yoskowitz
3 Jul 2010 14:42
Syabas has announced July 23rd as the shipping date for the highly-anticipated Popbox media player.
Pre-order began in May with a July 4th tentative release date. The company decided to delay the launch to work on some final tweaks for the Popbox software.
Among the first Popapps to ship with the box are Picasa, YouTube, Photobucket, Twitter, Next New Networks and Revision3.
The interface also includes a cover-flow-esque visual thumbnails selection for videos, music and other data, as well as universal search.
More notably, the interface can handle Flash, Java and QT meaning Netflix will be available eventually. Also available in the future is Hulu, CBS and ABC content, which can now include the in-video ads required for playback. Facebook Shoutcast MP3, and other Popcorn Hour content will rollover to the new box eventually, as well.
For video, full 1080p at 100Mbps is now supported, along with the standard MPEG formats, H.264, VC-1, WMV, MKV, XviD and other containers. The player can also support most subtitle files, including Microsoft's proprietary one. For streaming, the Popbox can recognize iTunes via Bonjour, and DLNA and UPnP sources.
At launch, the device will cost $130 for a wired version, or $150 for a Wi-Fi version.