Pinnacle ShowCenter and Vista

[SCDVD]

I have had a Pinnacle ShowCenter for a couple of years. I use it to play XVID movies on my TV. It works well and I enjoy using it. HOWEVER, I just installed Vista and made an unfortunate discovery; the software that runs on the host PC will not work with Vista. I contacted Pinnacle's tech support and after I sifted through their weasel words and translated their double-speak, I realized that not only does it not work with Vista now, it never will. Sounds like a lazy, incompetent bunch of sleaze-balls. They are basically saying, "We have your money already, so kiss off." Uh, one minor detail - they will never have any more of my money again. Any suggestions about a more "Vista friendly" way to stream XVID movies to my TV?

[Richard_G]

How many more questions are we going to see like this? Was your computer working properly before you installed Vista? Was there anything you desperately needed it to do that it couldn't but can now you've installed Vista?

Why spend money 'upgrading' to a newer operating system if it gives few benefits and a load more problems? If you want to keep Showcentre, keep the operating system that would run it.

As for the, "we have your money already" comment, you could just as easily go back to Microsoft and get the same reply. If you think about it, they have charged you money for an inferior product in that it is no longer capable of doing something the product it replaced did very well.

[SCDVD]

Richard_G, I upgraded to Vista because I wanted to. It has a number of functions and features that I like. I have to say, I am VERY impressed with it. I will decide what I like and need; no one else will do that for me. I have heard your style of "the OLD way is better" since DOS days. It is perfectly OK with me whatever OS you prefer to use. There are different levels of the engineers techno-boys disease. Some did a brain lock with DOS and view a GUI interface as a mortal sin or something. Others made it to Windows 3.1 before their brains locked up because anything that came later is an "inferior product". Some of the early software that the old-school boys hold dear to their heart was so crudely written that it wasn't allowed to run on a more secure operating system because of primitive and gross memory management violations for example. It sounds like Pinnacle shares this outlook. In any case, I asked for recommendations about alternative ways to stream XVID movies to my TV using Vista. I would appreciate anyones suggestions to THIS question. But I don't need anyone to chastise me for my choice of operating systems. Continue with Windows 1.0 or whatever you are using. You have my blessing but spare me your critique of my choice.

[Richard_G]

I didn't intend to offend and was merely making an observation. Since the release of Vista there have been literally hundreds of posts similar to yours. It worked fine until I upgraded and now doesn't. Does that tell you something? It's no different to any other computer problem, it did work and now doesn't, what have you changed in the meantime to cause the problem.

If Vista has functions and features you like then great. That's a good enough reason to go to it. My main point is that Windows 98 was iffy until they released 98SE, Windows 2000 was pretty dire until it got up to service pack 5, Windows XP caused a lot of problems initially (even though the first retail release included service pack 1) until service pack 2 came out.

I'm no stick in the mud but will only change something if it is an improvement and not because it is the latest (which may not be why you went for it, but is for a lot of people). For the moment, I'm sticking with XP SP2 but will go over to Vista when they have listened to the feedback and released the service pack that cures the problems. It doesn't matter how much testing they, or anyone else manufacturing a product for use by the general public, do the engineers doing the testing have an understanding of the product so don't try and do things that the general public are going to try.

An engineer in the automotive business told me that they have the same problem (and quoted one particular instance). Millions of miles of testing by engineers and the latest model of a popular UK built car was released. One of the first to be sold was taken back to the dealers within a day with a broken indicator switch. The engineers had never tried to pull on the switch because they understood it's function and knew that pulling on it had no effect, the 76 year old lady that had bought the car didn't understand the function and it came off in her hand!

When Microsoft realise that, although it has no function, people are going to try things they had never considered and build in a resistance to them, then they will know what needs to go into service pack 1.

As for the original question, I'm afraid I can't help but hope somebody can.

[SCDVD]

Update

By accident, I stumbled across an application that supports the Pinnacle ShowCenter 1000 (and quite a number of other media streaming devices). It's called SwissCenter. http://www.swisscenter.co.uk/ I installed it and it runs great under Vista. So my ShowCenter 1000 is not a chuck of useless hardware after all.

The thing that annoys me is that Pinnacle was completely unhelpful when I contacted their tech support last summer. Their basic attitude was that I was out of luck - "The ShowCenter 1000 will not run with Vista and never will in the future". Since they had no plans to support the ShowCenter 1000 under Vista, they could have at least suggested that I look at SwissCenter's application. They could have even hedged their comment by a disclaimer stating that they have not confirmed that it will work although you can bet they have run it in-house and know that it does work.

(A note to Pinnacle - I will remember this. You are now permanently off of my list of potential suppliers for any future products. I really don't appreciate needlessly being shut out of an easy solution to my problem!)