RE: Pinnacle Showcenter Review

["Tony Butler" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > A pucker 1.5 will be released in a few days, though I don't
> know if it adds  anything not in the RC....
>
> I dont think so, probably just a few bug fixes, but I havent
> noticd any real bugs...

Not beyond the normal one's no :(
The "don't try to select a photo when the thumbnails are drawing"
issue
still exists for example....

> > With all these things having flash upgrades, rather than give you
> > great  new
> > features over time, half the time IMO, they are fixing bugs that
> > should never have passed the testing phase and/or giving you
> > functionality that should have been included from day one....
>
> This is how things are, and are going to be. IMHO all the
> software we release as a company (Im not telling you which
> one :) is less than half tested, we dont care about quality,

LOL, ah go on!

> or features, its time to market that counts (don't try to
> tell the management you can have both, they don't listen)

It's gotta be microsoft then :P

I know what you're saying, but back in the good old days pre flash
upgrades,
a bit of kit did what it did, and usually did it well - I guess there was
more pressure to get the firmware right prior to release coz you sure as
hell couldn't upgrade it afterwards.....
Nowadays you can release something 1/2 working and finish it over the
coming
months.
I mean, a brand new feature not forseen being added (eg can't you flash
upgrade some high end audio processors to add Pro Logic II and other such
new formats) is fair enough, but simple things like not having the menus
crash out on you when you select something too quickly, or the ability to
browse mp3 and play at the same time or the dealing with widescreen issue
(only fixed in 1.5) etc are things that you would not expect to be a
problem
from day one.
The fact that they are still experimenting with what buttons perform what
function and when is just one more sign of the product being unfinished.
Again, in days gone by, I'm sure a lot of thought, surveys, prototypes blah
blah would have gone into the ergonomics and fuction of such devices, but
there's no need these days because you can always sort it out in a new
firmware relase....

> > done on the same processor (separate from the video
> decoder) and it's just too puny to handle mp3 AND UI duties :(
> >
> I found it ok, most of the speed issue is on the server (as
> you can test for yourself if you type
> http://server_address:8000
into internet explorer) - I jsut
> assume that my PC is a pile of pants.

No, the interface is quite nippy on my PC - it's the SC that is sloooowwww

One "solution" they are considering to the play music AND browse
problem is
to actually decompress the audio on the host PC, hogging it's processor
instead, then stream it over the lan, thus killing your wifi connection if
that's what you are using, so that the audio processor has a little bit of
headroom to be able to refresh the UI and detect changes on the remote
etc...

Again, isn't this basic, day 1 kind of functionality you would expect from
this kind of device?

> > There is also oxylbox, another gpl type replacement UI, and
> indeed the  software for the neuston media player can be used, so it's
> nice having that  variety.
> >
> yip, I was going to mention those, but the mail was getting
> too liong...

Heh heh, well at least I contributed something useful then.
I realise my comments are largely negative.
I do like my SC, I wouldn't (yet) recommend it unreservedly to others,
thought certainly it's a lot less hassle than setting up an xbox ;)

> OpenSC works on linux (i tried it). neuston version 2 doesnt
> work on the showcenter, they have put something into the
> software to stop that, but watch this space... its java, so

Bastards!  I must have tried an earlier version of the neuston software -
it
had some nice features, though the UI is a bit dark.....

> > You forgot to say that the support forums use the worst interface
> > known to man ;)
>
> worse, how can they get a bulletin board so wrong?

Umm....that's what I'm talking about!
Or do you mean the actual developers of the bulletin board?  Well, judging
by your comments earlier, I'd say it must be YOUR company ;)


Cheers,


Tony