Pinnacle ShowCenterâ„¢ 200 Expert Reviews

Many outputs connectors, including component video and both 720p and 1080i. Support for HD TVs and video formats. Great image quality.

Balky SQL server-based database, which proved difficult to work with. Persistent Wi-Fi troubles remained unsolvable.

Pinnacle Systems ShowCenter 200 seems to offer all the right ingredients for getting content from your PC to your HDTV. With both wired and wireless connectivity, support for Windows Media Video (including the HD version), several digital audio formats an...

Pinnacle's ShowCenter 200 bridges the audio-visual gap between PCs and TVs.It plugs into your home network (or directly to a PC using the supplied 'crossover cable').

Flexibility; HD support

Some HD jitter; No DVI/HDMI output

To enjoy the 200's pi¨ce de résistance - high-definition video streaming - wired Ethernet is a must.Formats supported by the 200 are 720p/1080i WMV,720p MPEG4 (eg DiVX/XViD) and 720p/1080i MPEG2.HDTV playback is restricted to the component outp

Handy as a go-between

No hard drive

The Pinnacle ShowCenter 200 serves as a useful conduit to stream content you've downloaded onto your PC into the comfort of your lounge room.

It's all very well using your PC to download album after album, stream music videos and film trailers or log on to BBC3, but it's not quite as nice as putting your feet up in the front room.

The ShowCenter has no hard disk and doesn't store any content; it's merely a central connection point. Depending on the physical layout of your home it could prove a useful go-between for the music, photos and video stored on your PC that you'd rather enj...

Pinnacle Showcenter 200A good option for media streaming

Smaller design; USB port

Want to play digital media, but don't want a PC in your lounge? This set-top box may be ideal

An affordable, flexible media streaming device? With wi-fi? Sounds too good to be true…

Not the perfect streaming device, but it comes pretty close.

Certainly I know my problems are not unique as I have spoken to others who were at the initial briefing and at least one has never even got past the software installation problems. After an initial prompt response that offered only off the peg vague reaso...

Pinnacle has tried to make a flexible and all-embracing Digital Media Player. The only obvious missing link is streamed TV, but even this is possible if you fit Pinnacle's TV tuner card in the serving PC. It's a workable solution if you want to play digit...