I ordered one... Pinnacle Showcenter Wireless G - Digital Media Player

[Richard King]

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10380494&loc=101&adid=17070&dcaid=17070

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/publicsite/uk/Products/Consumer+Products/Digital+Media+Adapters/Digital+Media+Player/ShowCenter+1000g.htm

It's going to replace this http://www.omnifimedia.com/products/omnifi_details.jsp?productId=12542&partner=
which I bought a few months ago. I like it, but it doesn't do video or pictures.

Did I do good?

[sledhead 700]

I ordered one also. It looks like a good deal and the specs look good too..I hope it works as well:)

Dave

[MikeSoltis]

But will it do WPA on the wireless network? Not much good if it doesn't.

[Richard King]

I hope it works as wellIt arrived today. So far I have spent 4 hours trying to make it work with no luck. If someone asked me I would say fogetaboutit. I would not do it again. If I don't get it running this evening it is going back first thing Monday morning. What a waste of valuable time.

[Richard King]

Edit the above. Once I got the new software version downloaded and installed I think I will very much enjoy this thing. It is working right now. I still have to remove the hard wire and go wireless, but that will have to wait. It currently lists 1551 songs that are on my computer and says that I have a total remaining time of 94 hours. :D I haven't played with video yet, nor pictures.... later.

[Nick]

Good going, Richard - you da man! :goodjob:

[sledhead 700]

Got mine too.. Just took it out of the box. It looks like I will need to update the software ... Thanks Richard any other hints?


Dave

[Richard King]

The software download failed 4 times before completing. Once it was done it did allright and was pretty much automatic. They told me to make sure the firewall was OFF during the download. I turned it off and left it off until I got the unit totally updated. It seems to work well this morning, well at least until I left. I will be doing more playing with it later today. I may upload some pix of the various screens. There is no comparison between this and my OmniFi, which I am retiring, when comparing user screens.

[Richard King]

So, Sledhead, how's it working? I still haven't done video yet. I have done pictures, but the video processor in my InFocus projector doesn't know what to do with them so it doesn't up convert makeing them not very good to look at. Oh well. It's still a very nice box for audio. I am still hard wired and may remain that way.

[sledhead 700]

So, Sledhead, how's it working? I still haven't done video yet. I have done pictures, but the video processor in my InFocus projector doesn't know what to do with them so it doesn't up convert makeing them not very good to look at. Oh well. It's still a very nice box for audio. I am still hard wired and may remain that way.


Mine worked the first time i hooked it up. :) Video is good. I have a 1080i CRT TV and I am using the composite video. All but the most compressed video looks good. DiVX looks great almost DVD quality. I wish I would have bought the showcenter 200 model it will play HD format files. But for $79 after rebate this is great. How do your pictures look? Mine are too stretched out like the aspect ratio is off. They are very clear on my set. I need to play around with the format of the photos to see if it helps. I did download the new version of the showcenter software that is on the computer. It also added a firmware update to the box. I had the audio hooked with RCA connectors and the sound was OK then I hooked it to the digital input on my receiver and what a difference it sounds great for MP3s but i incode at 320bps. I also have more audio files than it can handle so I see 4000 available on the box when I have 4890 in server. Must be a limit in the firmware. All in all I like it :D

Dave

[Richard King]

I still haven't played with the video yet, too busy exploriing other areas. Have you been able to upload album covers to the box? I tried and all I get is one album cover for every song, even though I have many proper album covers on the HD. I suspect it's how I am storing the songs and covers and some kind of conflict. Their site's not much help for this problem. :( Overall I like the unit and have found that much of the software can be modified and played with, which I haven't done because I would just break it. :lol:

[sledhead 700]

I do see the cover when it is playing. I have my directory in my music folder set as: Music/artist/album/songs the cover art is in the same directory as the song. I did use windows meda player to add the art in the first place fwiw. hope this helps

Dave

[Richard King]

I figured that might be the case. I need to "realign" my directories and organize them properly. Ah, yes, a project for this evening. I did some digging around and it appears that doing your own skin for the thing may be fairly easy. One of these days I will get around to playing with that also. :D

[olgeezer]

We have one only of the Show Centers available at a greatly reduced price.:D

[Richard King]

We who?

[olgeezer]

Our store
www.wolfes.com

[ntexasdude]

Looks like a cool product. I checked the wolfes website and they don't appear to have it. I saw prices ranging from to 125 to 273 on pricegrabber. Pretty big difference. I'd pay 125 but not 273. I wonder if this thing about to be discontinued?

[olgeezer]

We're at 169.99. Sony, clearance, and many other products aren't listed on the site. We're primarily brick and mortor. 81 years, primarily a camera business.

[cdru]

Fro those that have this and have seen/used XBMC (X-Box Media Center), how does it compare?

[Richard King]

I haven't seen the xBox, but the more I play with this thing the more I like it. I am getting album art to upload just fine. I played the one video that I have on my hard drive (Beatles doing Hey Jude) and it looked great through my (EDTV) projector considering the age. My only complaint is that it doesn't seem to do my pictures very well, but then, I wasn't really wanting it for that. When I get some time I will try to do some screen shots. The model that I have is the model 1000. The newer model (model 200) is HD compatable and also solves the photo problems that I mentioned. From what I hear the software in the interface is identical.

[socceteer]

WOW....I went out and ourchased the Pinnacle ShowCenter Wireless G 200. I am a software developer and have enough knowledge of the workstation to be a little dangerous and I have to tell you that I have never encountered a more difficult installation. I am still having trouble, but I was able to partially bypass the problems I encounter. Everytime I try to start the server from the Shocenter box, I get a message to upgrade the firmware, it shows the percentage to 100%, but it also gives me a message "invalid Signature" and also an error message which I can't find the definition anywhere. It reboots and starts the second firmware update, It does the same thing. goes to 100%, it gives me the same messages and it re-boot. When I try to access the server it goes right back to the message to upgrade the firmware.

My friend found a forum that explained how to bypass the upgrade by moving down twice and pressing OK.

I can get to the data, but it is clear that it needs the upgrade, since things are not working well. timeouts, screen freeze, missing folders, etc.

Hard to believe that they will sale a products with this many problems.

Does anyone know how what I am missing so I can complete the upgrade..?

[socceteer]

OK for the next person who wants to know how I solved the problem.

After lots of investigation and several tries at installing and playing with the system, I finally when to the Pinnacle support site and downloaded the beta version of Showcenter 2.20. I installed it and most of my problems went away, the firmeware installed and I was finally able to access the server with out a problem.

My evaluation now that I can play with it

The good:
- The pictures are clear once I figure out how to set
- The songs are very
- It works well wirelessly
- Small
The Bad:
- It is very hard to navigate, but once you figure it out, then it is not that bad.
- The remote control function sucks. It works 70% of the time. I have to press the key 2 to 3 times before it works and sometimes it has a delay, so if you move it down once and you do not wait, it will move twice.
- I have not been able to evaluate video, so far I have looked at small clips from my digital camera and the suck because they are stretched and if I view them at actual size, they are too small to see on the 50'" TV.

[socceteer]

PS: in case you are interested. I used this unit once and solde it on e-bay, now that x-box 360 is out, that is the way to go

[Richard King]

VERY pleased with mine here. I now have a dedicated standalone network drive feeding it. Now, if I could only find a way to have the network drive work with the computer turned off. :D I have 846 songs loaded on the network drive so far and about that many more to go when I find the time.