Media centre thingy

Eoin

Hi folks,

I am currently looking at the Pinnacle ShowCenter 200 media centre, but I am wondering what - if any - alternatives are out there. Preferably not costing much more than 300 euros.

thanks in advance,

Eoin

Eoin

so, anyone know of any alternative products - or even what this brand of technology is called? I tried googling "media centre", but that mostly returns media PCs...

Lump

Media Sender is what they are called. However go with the Pinnacle, it's the daddy.

John

Eoin

Lump wrote:

Media Sender is what they are called. However go with the Pinnacle, it's the daddy.

John

Thanks John, that's pretty much what I thought.

Lump

I have the 1000G Version, the 200 is better, well it's the newer version. And I love mine.

John

Jambo

PC World have the Pinnacle showcenter 200 - with wireless g for €183 at the moment .

They are also selling the d-link media lounge for € 119 ( well thats what the girl behind the counter told me as the shelf + box had no price on it ) here's a link http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=318 so if she was right on the price I think ill have one by sat !!.

In the meanwhile if anone else knows of any other media senders that have on screen menus post it up !!

Eoin

angel_of_death wrote:

PC World have the Pinnacle showcenter 200 - with wireless g for €183 at the moment .

They are also selling the d-link media lounge for € 119 ( well thats what the girl behind the counter told me as the shelf + box had no price on it ) here's a link http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=318 so if she was right on the price I think ill have one by sat !!.

In the meanwhile if anone else knows of any other media senders that have on screen menus post it up !!

Thanks a million for that angel_of_death - looks interesting. Seems like a good price from PC World.

The DLink thing looks interesting, the reviews are so-so, but looks promising all the same. No DivX support though (I am guessing that DivX is not the same as xVid)

WezzyB

Check what I wrote about the Freecom Mediaplayer Kit I bought recently on another thread.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054851490

Eoin

WezzyB wrote:

Check what I wrote about the Freecom Mediaplayer Kit I bought recently on another thread.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054851490

Thanks for that - the wireless connectivity is pretty much a "must-have" for me, so I think the Pinnacle ShowCenter is the way to go.

Fallschirmjager

i have that dlink one.

for pics, music it is actually quite good, however i could not get the video streaming working, but to be honest considering the jumble of cables i have behind my tv, i could probably cook a chicken on the radiation from it. it was also on 11.a, i never tried 11.g, in fact i was amazed it worked at all!

the only part i didnt like is the process on your pc that shares the music is a bit of a pile of poo. it works but it looks like an old windows app rather then a 32 bit one.
i had purchased a external drive linked to a linksys nslu2.
you can convert the linksys NSLU2 (it uses linux) to stream to the dlink (well it deliver according to the standard) . there is a german company who sells software that can deliver to the dlink (i think it is about 50 euro or something) . i was going to try that as the linksys unit is about the size of your hand and would not need the pc booted all the time. however, the linksys was as buggy as F and there support was absolutely terrible so i had to scratch that idea as it would not let me copy any files larger then a few megs before loosing the conenction to xp.

the dlink i was quite impressed with but i am replacing it with a htpc i will be building over christmas time...

all this info is about 4 months old tho...so they may have cleaned up the background process and they did seem quite good on updates for the dlink box itself- which it managed automatically. the end user interface and setup was a doddle.....to be honest i think it was one of the few pieces of kit that i booted, conencted and was working in 20 minutes. hope that helps...

Eoin

eoin_s wrote:

Thanks for that - the wireless connectivity is pretty much a "must-have" for me, so I think the Pinnacle ShowCenter is the way to go.

In case anyone is interested, I ended up going with the ShowCenter 200. Unfortunately, I have been quite disappointed with it for a couple of reasons

1) The setup is NOT easy. I got it working thanks to the help of a colleague of mine who also has one. Although it is probably aimed at PC literate people (and I think you need to be quite PC literate to set it up), home cinema buffs may also want to get it, and will not find it easy to set up

2) The menu system for TV series is "missing" the last level. I.e. if you want the media manager to have it set up like this:
Movies / Series / Family Guy / Season 1, then it will not show the list of episodes in a season - it will just play the entire season as one movie. Instead you have to group all Family Guy episodes into one lot. Annoying if you have all 5 series.

3) Most annoying: The wireless connectivity seems very flaky. My wireless router, PC and the media centre are all within line of sight and 30 feet or so of each other. My PC is pretty highly specificed, and I am quite sure the problem isn't there. The signal strength on the PC is consistently "very strong". Despite this, playback is often paused for a couple of seconds. I then have to press pause and play on the remote to start again.

Sometimes the entire system becomes unresponsive, and I have to switch the unit off and on again. Othertimes it will try and catch up (best way I can think of to describe it) and it will play in fast forward. This happens consistently. These problems happen so frequently that there is no point watching a movie as I just know the problem is going to happen again.

My next option is to have a phone point put closer to the PC and the show centre so the router can be even closer. If that fails, I will have to bite the bullet and put a long cross over cable between the PC and the show center. This is really what I wanted to avoid in the first place

Anyhow, just thought I would post my experiences in case anyone else is considering one, or if anyone else has had the same problems and can help me out

Eoin

Lump

Well, sorry to hear you're not happy with it. As I said, I have the 1000G version, which is an older version. I'm very happy with it, and I had no problem setting it up, plug it in and go for me. Then again I had my router set up ok!

It sounds like there's something wrong with your wireless, mine works about 30 metres!

You know you can create play lists right? that should help with the season issue.

Have you updated the firmware? And the media centre software?

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/uk/Products/Consumer+Products/Digital+Media+Adapters/Digital+Media+Player/ShowCenter+200+Support/Contact/Contact+Support/Contact+Support

Looks like a few Wireless issues have been sorted. Have you made sure all the settings are correct? Did you read the manual? Ad set it up as in the manual?

John

Eoin

Lump wrote:

Well, sorry to hear you're not happy with it. As I said, I have the 1000G version, which is an older version. I'm very happy with it, and I had no problem setting it up, plug it in and go for me. Then again I had my router set up ok!

It sounds like there's something wrong with your wireless, mine works about 30 metres!

You know you can create play lists right? that should help with the season issue.

Have you updated the firmware? And the media centre software?

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/uk/Products/Consumer+Products/Digital+Media+Adapters/Digital+Media+Player/ShowCenter+200+Support/Contact/Contact+Support/Contact+Support

Looks like a few Wireless issues have been sorted. Have you made sure all the settings are correct? Did you read the manual? Ad set it up as in the manual?

John

Thanks for the reply John

I downloaded the latest firmware when I got it (180MB download!), which pretty much made the manual obselete. I moved the wireless router into the same room which helped a little; watched a film and it only paused once and resumed under it's own power which is a big improvement. If that's as bad as iit gets, I would be happy enough with that.

Lump

Seriously, if you are still having problems, contact the tech support via this link: http://www.pinnaclesys.com/wwwsupport/interactivesupport.asp?Langue_ID=2#

Check the knowledge base, and then ask a question if you get no joy. I can pretty much guarntee that they'll get back to you within 1-2 days, that's what I love about Pinnacle, there support is great! Remember that the support is based in America, so 1-2 days may be different cause of the time zones.

John

Eoin

Lump wrote:

Seriously, if you are still having problems, contact the tech support via this link: http://www.pinnaclesys.com/wwwsupport/interactivesupport.asp?Langue_ID=2#

Check the knowledge base, and then ask a question if you get no joy. I can pretty much guarntee that they'll get back to you within 1-2 days, that's what I love about Pinnacle, there support is great! Remember that the support is based in America, so 1-2 days may be different cause of the time zones.

John

Thanks again John . I'm gonna triple check that everything is set up correctly, and then drop them a line. As I said, it is already much better now the router is in the same room as the show center.

Eoin

Lump

Yea, but it should work fine through walls, unless your walls are 3 feet thick

John

FrankGrimes

a lad in work was talking about some product called Home Plug or something: its 2 plugs. Plug one into a mains socket beside your internet source/router, and plug a CAT5 cable carrying the internet signal into it. Plug another in your destination room, and plug another CAt5 cable into it.

Not explaining it well, but basically it means you can use your mains cables as a network at 84Mbit/s. Baffled me, but apparently it works. €200 or thereabouts for first 2 plugs I think though.

Can find out name if you want.

Eoin

FrankGrimes wrote:

a lad in work was talking about some product called Home Plug or something: its 2 plugs. Plug one into a mains socket beside your internet source/router, and plug a CAT5 cable carrying the internet signal into it. Plug another in your destination room, and plug another CAt5 cable into it.

Not explaining it well, but basically it means you can use your mains cables as a network at 84Mbit/s. Baffled me, but apparently it works. €200 or thereabouts for first 2 plugs I think though.

Can find out name if you want.

I have heard of this too, I think it's called X10 - google found this site first: http://www.x10.com/home.html.

I saw something similar on the TV, and as you said it uses the mains in the house as your network cabling, and you can automate lights, appliances etc from your PC.