Pinnacle Showcentre 200 - Yea or nay?

SwampThing · 28-06-2006 05:22PM #1

Just wondering if anyone has an opinion - based on personal experience or just a gut feeling - on this product?

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/Digital+Media+Adapters/Digital+Media+Player/ShowCenter+200.htm

Lump · 28-06-2006 07:50PM

I have one....have had it for ages. It's great. I'd buy one, I have no problems with it.

aFlabbyPanda · 29-06-2006 01:25AM

yes, but use different software. The server software in the box is bloated and useless. get the software for Buffalo's Version. No sql databases or nothing. just a simple http server with some virtual folders. and it looks nicer too.

Lump · 29-06-2006 10:14AM

Have you a location for said siftware, I'd be interested to try it.

aFlabbyPanda · 29-06-2006 10:51AM

http://www.buffalo-technology.com/downloads/linktheater-16.zip

it really is much, much better. you'll need to stop the Pinnacle software from running as they both use the same port (8000).

SwampThing · 29-06-2006 11:26AM

Cheers lads.

SwampThing · 05-07-2006 08:35AM

Lump, where'd you get yours?

Lump · 21-07-2006 10:22AM

Sorry, only noticed that question now. I came back here for that link to the software, I bought mine on Ebay for £70 I think, ages and ages ago. I'll probably update it at some stage, but for now it works great.

Also BrianjG cheers for that software, it works great, and finally got my crappy P333 (download Machine) to stream, the pinnacle software wouldn't work on it

John

Eoin · 21-07-2006 12:11PM

Lump wrote:

Sorry, only noticed that question now. I came back here for that link to the software, I bought mine on Ebay for £70 I think, ages and ages ago. I'll probably update it at some stage, but for now it works great.

Are you serious? I think I paid 200-300 for mine last Christmas from an Irish company!

OP: I had a few teething problems with mine, but got most of them sorted eventually. My router was in a different room to my PC and media centre, and films would often hang and I would have to restart the box. When I moved the router into the same room it worked fine. I have also had problems with using PSK security on the router.

Any other problems I have had, have been minor annoyances, rather than real issues.

The media manager on the PC is alright, however the menu structure on the TV is a little quirky.

For example, the main headings for movie files are: Name / Collection / Series. So, for a series of Family Guy, I would have:
FamilyGuyS01E01.avi / Family Guy / Series 1
FamilyGuyS01E02.avi / Family Guy / Series 1
FamilyGuyS01E03.avi / Family Guy / Series 1
FamilyGuyS02E01.avi / Family Guy / Series 2
FamilyGuyS02E02.avi / Family Guy / Series 2
FamilyGuyS02E03.avi / Family Guy / Series 2
etc

This means that when you select the list of movies, Family Guy will only appear once - rather than each episode appearing, which would be cumbersome. However, when you select Family Guy - rather than showing a sub-menu with the list of series, it starts to play the entire collection. You can get around this by using play-lists though.

Edit: Got it from www.microaid.ie for €225.05

aFlabbyPanda · 21-07-2006 11:35PM

switch to the software I mentioned above and you get around all those problems.

Lump · 22-07-2006 10:38AM

I bought mine second hand

Hence it's cheaper. but 225 seems like a lot.

Eoin · 22-07-2006 10:09PM

BrianjG wrote:

switch to the software I mentioned above and you get around all those problems.

Just installed that software - it's excellent! thanks for that.

GeorgeBailey · 02-08-2006 10:57AM

Has anyone used the showcenter with a NAS? Is it any good?

netman · 03-08-2006 12:38PM

Did anyone manage to get the ShowCenter to display subtitles for .avi files?

In the online brochures it claims to be able to do it, but in the manual it says it only displays subtitles for ripped DVDs (VOBs).

Also, I found some more alternative software

http://www.swisscenter.co.uk/
http://wizd.sourceforge.net/

Pinnacle Showcentre 200 - Yea or nay?

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