A TiVo For Your PC

When computer companies talk about entertainment convergence, they're probably talking about the merging of TV and PC -- and maybe audio. If you want to converge all that, plus add the TiVo-like capability to pause and record TV, Pinnacle Systems has a low-cost solution for you: the $129.99 Pinnacle MediaCenter 100e.

Pinnacle's MediaCenter is a software-hardware kit that allows you to watch, record and time-shift live TV from any PC or laptop with USB 2.0 capability. The software also takes the "entertainment center" idea a step further by managing all media on your computer, including photos, music and DVDs.

Out of the box, hardware set up was very simple: Install the software, plug in the USB cable, attach the cable line and you're good to go.

When using the TV feature of the software, picture quality was very good -- better than other TV tuners I've seen. The time-shift features were easy to use and worked well using the IR remote that came packaged with the product. Simply press pause and your live TV is instantly paused. The record feature worked just as easily as the time-shift. You can either press record to start recording or you can schedule a recording for the future by specifying the channel, time, and duration of the program you would like to record. A 30 minute program recorded at DVD quality gobbles up about 1 gigabyte of storage space.

Unfortunately, the software suite that comes with the MediaCenter is too ambitious, too bloated and too taxing on system resources -- and too hard to use.

For example, you can use MediaCenter to play all your mp3s, but the user interface makes it very hard to navigate through your library of music. I found the same problem with the slideshow feature when it came to displaying pictures. It was difficult and confusing to navigate through and use. Apple and other companies -- even shareware outfits -- can provide superior applications for music and photos, so the MediaCenter offerings in these areas are unnecessary and unwelcome. All this redundant bloatware is essentially forced upon you. If you want the desirable TiVo functionality, you have to install the undesirable MP3 and other functionality to get it.

A lesser, but still irritating, element is that the handheld remote control unit that comes with the product uses InfraRed instead of radio. That means you need "line of sight" with the unit in order for your clicks to register. If you're used to a TV remote control, you may not be bothered by this. But once you've grown used to an omni-directional remote, it's hard to go back. Also: It would be nice if the remote were programmable to interact with other applications and with Windows itself. Instead, the bundled remote works only with MediaCenter.

If you want to transform your PC into a TiVo TV, MediaCenter is a very high-quality and easy-to-use solution that I can recommend very highly. But it would be improved immensely by an omnidirectional remote that could be used outside of MediaCenter, and by the elimination of all that clunky foistware.