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[fex]

In the last few weeks you could read a lot about ShowCenter from Pinnacle here in Europe. The device is hooked up to a television via S-VHS or SCART and imports all data - video, audio and photos - from a PC. Data transfer occurs via either 100 Mbit/s Ethernet or wireless WLAN.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/consumer/20031205/index.html


It appears to fit the bill (around USD 275).

But the software is ugly. Therea are a few projects to enhance it:

- http://www.oxyl.de/
- http://openshowcenter.sourceforge.net/  (a free and open source server for the Pinnacle Showcenter, featuring plug-ins, themes, a nice GUI....)

But nothing comes near as close to MC. Any chance to have any support from JRiver?

[Nolonemo]

I've been thinkng about this myself.  Right now I have a audio line-level connection bewteen the PC in the family room and the receiver in the entertainment center in the living room (about a 50' run using quad-shield coax for each of the two channels).  The only problem with this is that I can only control volume in the living room but can't skip tracks, etc. without going back to the PC.

I'm thinking about getting a video card with TV out and running a video line from the PC to the entertainment center.   Add to that an ATI wireless remote for the PC, and I could display the pc screen on the tv and control the whole deal from the living room using the full functionality of MC9.  The only problem is that I'd have to resize the PC display res to be able to read genre/artist/album info on the TV because of the TV's low resolution.  I guess if I had an HDTV that wouldn't be a problem.

I like the idea of the wireless systems like the Pinnacle, but they make you use their own software, not something I am interested in.

[modelmaker]

I had my local computer shop make me a 35' extension cable for a second monitor that is next to the stereo with no noticable degradation in the picture quality of the VGA monitor ( I'm using a matrox G550 video card). I already had been wired up with IR remote extenders and an IRman.

[Sternwart]

Hi,
I use Pinnacle ShowCenter now for a week. This is great hardware - but the software they have ist miles away from JRiver Mediacenter.
They have a streaming server for pictures, music (mp3) and video files.
From my point of view their conzept would exactly fit to MediaCenter software. I could use MediaCenter either on my PC and from TV in the living room with remote control.

JRiver people, do you see any chance to support this device in the future?

rgds

Gerald [Germany]

[gpvillamil]

It would be excellent if J River could support this new generation of PC linked media players. I posted on the subject here.

I currently have the media PC sitting under the TV in the living room, and I use Media Server to stream music to a laptop + speakers in the bedroom. And if necessary I can use the MC Remote Server to control the living room PC. However, it would be nice to be able to use something like the Slim Squeezebox in the bedroom and free up the laptop.

[mindracing]

I looked at Showcenter (£299 in UK) too and it was just the software that put me off.

I would love MC to support this and other similar devices.

Commercially, how many of us bought MC just for the iPOD? I know I did. With Showcenter devices becoming more common this would open a new customer base for J River.

[JimH]

It would be excellent if J River could support this new generation of PC linked media players.

We're working on them.  We've done it for the TiVo with Home Media Option (see our TiVo board here for details) and for the Sony Media Receiver.

The biggest problem is that they are all a little different.  No good standards yet.  Another problem is that we have difficulty getting cooperation from manufacturers.  This should change shortly.

By this time next year, we should have reasonable support for those that follow any standards.

[fex]

... Commercially, how many of us bought MC just for the iPOD? ...

Count me in.

... We're working on them...

Thanks!

[Sternwart]

The biggest problem is that they are all a little different.  No good standards yet.  Another problem is that we have difficulty getting cooperation from manufacturers.  

Great that you already had a look at these appliances. To come back to Pinnacle Showcenter: This device is on market since Nov-2003. 4 weeks later first opensource implementations of showcenter software appeared in the web. So my opinion is, this might not as difficult as you believe. Please have a look at
http://www.oxyl.de
http://openshowcenter.sourceforge.net

I watched some of these devices and came to the conclusion, that Pinnacle has best support of multiple media file types (not just MP3, but DIVX video with ac3 sound too, pictures etc.) And they promised to update their Wireless support to 802.11g (54MBits/s, needed for MPEG2-Support). Currently only 802.11b (11Mbits/s) but enough to stream music or DIVX-Videos from the PC to the living room  ...

rgds
Sternwart [Germany]
Showcenter has support for a lot of media file

[JimH]

Thanks for the links.  We will take a look.