Pinnacle Showcenter

With the Showcenter, Pinnacle has joined the growing number of manufacturers attempting to lure people away from Media Center Edition PCs. It works by hooking up to your TV and hifi, and streams media from the PC via an Ethernet or wireless connection.

The Showcenter itself is well designed and its slim silver case will sit neatly next to your TV and stereo. All the features are accessed using the remote control, which isn't the most attractive of devices. With both a bulky design and awkward keys, navigating through the menus isn't the easiest of tasks and you're often left wondering which button does what.

Before you can stream anything to your TV, you need to install the Showcenter software on your PC and search for suitable media. You can also instruct Showcenter to monitor folders and, when new media is found, you'll be alerted by a blue LED on the front of the unit.

Using the bundled crossover Ethernet cable, we had the Showcenter up and running in next to no time. The wireless setup was equally simple, but you'll find that Showcenter is only capable of using a small selection of wireless PC Cards - check the website for more details. Surprisingly, 802.11g is not supported.

In terms of performance, the Showcenter didn't disappoint. DivX movies streamed perfectly, even over a wireless connection. The 11Mbits/sec bandwidth of the 802.11b connection isn't enough to play the likes of mpeg2 videos using the wireless connection, so you'll have to stick to the Ethernet link.

Although it has a few issues such as the lack of an 802.11g option and fiddly menus, the Showcenter gets the job done and looks great.

Contact: Pinnacle 01895 442 003
www.pinnaclesys.com

Specifications:

• Remote control
• 802.11b wireless
• 100Mbit Ethernet
• PC Card slot
• Scart, component/composite video out, S-video
• 2x RCA stereo/optical/S/PDIF out