Pctv Pro USB External USB2 Tv Tuner

by Pinnacle

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000FFQ2GQ
• Item model number: 230100056
• Average Customer Review: 1.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #140,373 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Package Contents: USB 2.0 TV tuner, remote control (with batteries), USB 2.0 cable, CD-ROMs with Pinnacle MediaCenter and Studio QuickStart software, printed quick-start guide

With the Pinnacle PCTV Pro is an analog TV tuner that connects you your PC. Enjoy the ease and convenience of viewing your favorite TV shows on your PC, with the included remote control. It features TimeShifting and Direct-To-DVD or hard drive recording. Record to MPEG-1 & -2 formats, as well as DivX. Schedule recordings with the Electronic Program Guide (free trial) and record on-the-fly with its one-button operation. You can also listen to Internet radio, play CDs and DVDs & access your PC-based media files. Bus-powered and compact, the PCTV Pro USB is great for laptop users too. Create photo slideshows Listen to Internet radio Infrared remote control included Recording Formats - MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DivX, MPEG-4 (compatible with portable media players) Inputs - TV antenna (IEC); S-Video (Mini-DIN); Composite Video (RCA); Stereo audio (line in, 3.5mm jack) System Requirements - Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz, Pentium M 1.3 GHz or compatible AMD Athlon processor; 256MB RAM; U-DMA IDE hard disk (min. 5GB free); Graphics/sound controller; CD-ROM drive; Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port; Windows XP with latest Service Pack

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Waist of time and money., June 20, 2006

By 

Nick - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pctv Pro USB External USB2 Tv Tuner (Electronics)

The picture and sound quality is terrible, plain and simple. The constant high pitch noise that you normally here with tv's is even worst with this thing; along with that, the sound quality is just aweful. I've heard much better sound come out of older tv's. The picture quality is simply unbearable, even regular channels have snowy picture when plugged into the cable. I even tried connecting it to different jacks and tried different wire and the result was the same. And even worse, it takes a half hour just to install the software only to get poor results. I decided to uninstall and return this so called tv tuner, and when I began uninstalling it, a window for a major error in windows popped up. My computer was fine afterwards, but that should not happen. My guess would be that the software messes with windows xp (i have professional) to compensate for it not being media center. Nevertheless, avoid this product and only get a tuner with good reviews and actually has tech specs, dont be fooled by the "features." They don't even tell you the resolution this thing is capable of.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I wish I saw the previous review earlier, June 25, 2006

By 

Alhambra Dude (Hacienda Heights, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pctv Pro USB External USB2 Tv Tuner (Electronics)

Bought this pctv pro usb tv tuner today at Fry's,
very excited to try it out, After hours preparation,
I got my cable connected to this thing, everything
seems fine, until the installation froze. I thought
it just takes time, until 1 full hour passed, it's
just frozen. have to retry several times, then finally
it installed. then it's a super slow process of scan...
yes, I chose fast scan. after another long terrible
period of waiting, the scan finished, found 7 channels,
which are just... snow... After searching their website,
it seems that... this model doesn't support my cable
format. only antenna is supported.

I regreted so much I spent the whole Saturday night
trying to make this piece of junk working...

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy this if you want to use Windows Media Center in Vista (until its made compatable), April 18, 2007

By 

lpeters (Seatte, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pctv Pro USB External USB2 Tv Tuner (Electronics)

This item was recommended and purchased from Dell for my new E520, running Vista. I actually upgraded to Vista Ultimate for the Windows Media Center experience. I spent at least 10 hours trying to get this tuner to work with Windows Media Center in Vista Ultimate. Including tech support from Dell (who were connected to my computer and could not fix the problem) and finally 5 phone calls to Pinnacle support today (who were not very helpful).

I naturally installed the hardware and software as per the instructions. The TV worked in the Pinnacle TV Center, but the quality of the picture was really bad, very grainy and lots of static. (This is using analog cable direct from wall socket). But, I was excited I had TV on my computer!

Then I went to Windows Media Center in Vista. WMC could not find the TV tuner. Dell Tech Support could not fix the problem and referred me to Pinnacle.

After 6 hours today and 5 calls to Pinnacle I have finally given up and I'm returning the tuner to Dell. Pinnacle had me uninstall the software that came with the tuner. Then download and install the Pinnacle TV Center Pro 4.70. This did not fix the problem. Then they told me I had to install new drivers for Windows Vista. This did not work either. (I did notice that the driver and software updates were very recent, last couple of days.)

After all this work, they finally told me that they did not have updated support for Windows Media Center in Vista, and therefore it would not work with WMC.

So, if you want happy watching TV on your computer with the Pinnacle Media Center its fine, just not good quality TV. If you want to use Windows Media Center with Vista. It will not support it right now, so don't waste your money.