Black Boxes:
Pinnacle ShowCenter
$300
Pinnacle Systems, Inc.
280 N. Bernardo Ave.
Mountain View, CA 94043
(650) 526-1600
www.pinnaclesys.com
The ShowCenter 1000g is Pinnacle Systems' latest version of its A/V client. For those just tuning in, A/V clients sit in one's stereo cabinet to play images and sounds stored on one's computer through one's stereo system and TV set. The 802.11g WiFi card that came with this model brought it into the world of broadband wireless networking. The extra bandwidth that Wireless G provides gave the A/V client the ability to receive video streams, in addition to still pictures and audio streams, from the host PC.
ShowCenter has also upgraded its software since the first release. We tested the unit with version 1.5. Though Pinnacle had already announced a firmware upgrade and a batch of additional features that would be activated with version 1.7, this software had yet to be released at press time. The most notable features introduced with version 1.5 were Internet radio reception and support for a greater number of file formats.
Setup required installing Pinnacle's server software on the PC, hosting the media files and getting the PC and ShowCenter to find one another on a Wireless G network. We installed the server software on a 2.2 GHz Compaq 8000T Pentium 4 machine with one GB RAM running Windows XP Home Edition. This installed as two applications, the server itself and an application for managing one's media. One can import media files from folders, discs or cameras into the server through the media manager software. We used its Watch Folders function to have it regularly scan the folders (and sub-folders) in which we kept most of our photos, music and video clips. The first scan took around half an hour, but it found all the relevant files. Each scan after that would quickly identify new media files added to the watched folders since the last scan.
We first set up ShowCenter with a wired Ethernet connection to the PC. Setup was painless (not counting the cable pulling) and almost instantaneous. Getting ShowCenter on the Wireless G network was not nearly as easy. Though both the PC and the client supported Intel's UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) protocol, the client did not find the server address automatically. Also, by default, Windows XP had its auto-detection of UPnP devices turned off as a security measure. We turned this on and added the computer's name and IP address into the client's manual Add Server screen. This took several tries, and too much walking between rooms, but we finally established communication. We didn't clock the differences, but ShowCenter seemed to perform its main functions with a bit more snap on the wired network than on the wireless.
The client's lack of audio and video pass-through made it challenging to wire into an existing home theater system. Our stereo receiver simply had no more audio and video inputs available. With pass-through, we could have wired it in series behind, say, a VCR or DVD player. We instead had to find a more elaborate work-around to get it into the loop before the receiver and TV screen.
The Server
In addition to making ShowCenter-supported files accessible to the client, the server software has the duty of transcoding non-supported types into supported types. It set about doing this on every launch and continued until each non-compliant file had been transcoded. Transcoding can be extremely processor-intensive, and while running in the background, would slow our PC down dramatically. Since the server installs itself with an auto-launch from the system tray and therefore launches automatically on boot up, a user could begin to wonder why--since he installed ShowCenter--he could type so much faster than his screen. Of course, you can remove the server from your system tray and run it only when you aren't using your computer for anything else. Obviously, the client won't work while the server is off. In a family setting, where someone might want to work on the computer while someone else wants to watch family videos, this could present a problem, at least until those wayward files are all transcoded.
The Media Manager
The media manager is surprisingly full-featured for such an early release. It holds features similar in some ways to those found in media players like the Windows Media Player, Winamp, iTunes and others, to photo managers like Adobe's Album or Ulead's Photo Explorer. One uses the media manager to import files from camera, CD or drive sources into a media library, organize them by keywords and/or ratings, assemble them into playlists, and burn folders and playlists onto recordable CDs.
In order to create a slideshow with a music soundtrack, one uses the media manager to associate an audio playlist with a playlist of still pictures. The media manager made this task easy, and it worked well in our tests. However, one would also like the ability to, say, play a folder full of music files while simultaneously playing a folder full of still pictures, from the client, without first needing to build playlists at the server. This was not possible with the version we tested. It played pictures only, music only, or playlists previously assembled at the server.
The media manager provided no tools for importing Internet radio stations into its playlists. One could imagine, for example, a button on the Import tab for importing SHOUTcast stations from a list. No such button existed in version 1.5. Rather, the ShowCenter's instructions told us to add the URLs for favorite Internet Radio stations to a folder called ShowCenter Radio, which the installation software had created in Internet Explorer's Favorites menu. We tried to do this in several different ways, all to no avail. Similarly, other users have reported only limited success doing this. We discovered, however, it was possible to place a bookmark for the SHOUTcast home page itself into IE's ShowCenter Radio folder, to find this through the client's list of radio stations and to launch radio stations from there. It was an inelegant solution though. The home page isn't formatted for the client's narrow browser, making it very hard to navigate through the client. Also, tuning a station this way forced most of the screen to go black, and we could navigate away from this only to the client's home menu, not directly back to the menus for Internet radio or music.
The Client
We found the client's graphical user interface easy to read 10 feet from the TV screen, with a straightforward navigation structure. The unit's remote control, however, felt a bit awkward and held a few buttons labeled with hard-to-read words or enigmatic symbols. Playback of stills from a folder sometimes took a long time to get started, especially on first play. After this, however, stills, slideshows and music playlists worked without faltering. Playback of video stuttered fairly regularly. The unit also had a tendency to lock up while we navigated from one menu to another. Rebooting the client usually got things moving again.
Version 1.7
By press time, Pinnacle had posted a datasheet listing the new ShowCenter features that would become active with the free version 1.7 software upgrade. Among others were:
All in all, we enjoyed living with ShowCenter. Our most common use for it was instant playback of folders of photos dumped from our digital still camera to the server PC. It proved much more enjoyable, especially for groups of people, to view these from the living room sofa rather than herding around a computer monitor.
Stephen Muratore is Smart TV & Sound's Editor in Chief.
[Sidebar: ShowCenter User Forums]
ShowCenter uses the open source Linux operating system. As a result, open source programmers have gone to work writing additional applications for this A/V client and enhancing its features, adding things like a Web browser, for example. You can find their programs, and their discussions at these Web sites:
[Sidebar: Using ShowCenter as a Web Browser]
While testing the unit, it occurred to us that its Internet Radio page functions as a Web browser, but one showing Web content through only a very narrow Window. "Perhaps," we reasoned, "those sites, such as Avantgo's, formatted for browsing by PDAs (which also have narrow browsers) would be easier to navigate through the ShowCenter than regular Web sites." This proved true, and we were able to surf the Web, read news and pick up email using ShowCenter and PDA-formatted sites.
Smart Specs
Audio Outputs
Remote Control Protocol: IR
Remote Control Style: Buttons
Universal Remote: N
Computer Platform: Windows XP (Professional or Home edition) or Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 or higher
Internet Radio: Y
Streaming Video: Y
PVR Functions: Y when the server PC has one of Pinnacle's PCTV PVR boards installed
UPnP: Y
MCE Extender: N
Audio/Video Pass Through N
5.1 Surround: N, but 5.1-stereo downmix is an option
Hard Drive Info: n/a
Web Programmable: N, but theoretically possible
Web Browser: N, but possible through Internet Radio page
Keyboard: N
Bundled Server Software: Pinnacle ShowCenter media server
Minimum System Requirements:
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