Customer Reviews

Pctv Pro USB External USB2 Tv Tuner

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

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.

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...

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.

I'm wondering how this product got out the door! Worse, it's still being sold. I wanted to move to a USB TV Tuner from my Hauppauge PVR 150 so I could use it on my laptop as well. The picture quality is horrible. There was a "banding" area on the left side of the screen that was even there when I completely disconnected the cable; the snow on the screen was even screwed up.

If you are considering buying this product despite reading this review, then you will be next in line to get burned. This is junk is being returned tomorrow!

I should have listen from the other review before buying this junk. It only works with XP but the result is not good and the quality is grainy. The tuner doesn't work either. I installed to Vista and it messed up my DVD-ROM. I'm returning this product and find a better one.

The seller did his job, he's not at fault but this is a piece of crap, tv tuner. This tuner was $100.00 new, the software has numerous problems, if it was mine to sell, I'd put it in file 13. G D

I bought this piece of junk with mediocre expectations. Wow was I disappointed. I tried it on two separate machines and both failed miserably. 1st machine was a compaq 2.4ghz with 512MB RAM, the second machine was a new Toshiba laptop with an NVida video card a 1GB of RAM. On both machines it pegged the processor. I searched all of the forums, wiped out the OS on the compaq and had the same result. I quit messing with the device after 2 weeks and it has been sitting in a desk drawer for about a year now.
Reviewer Background:
10+ Years IT/PC experience
Certifications: A+, MCSE

I bought this. Big mistake. First, it doesn't have all the necessary equipment to work with. Second, the software completely corrupted my computer and destroyed my video and sound card, as well as my DVD drive.

I do not recommend this product to anyone.

Well, I'm really in a bad situation now: I live in Brazil, bought this product on last May (from here, but shipped to my son's address in Boston) and my Harvard's MBA son brought it to me early June, when he came to Sao Paulo for his half course trainne job; as I'm trying to put PCTV "working good" since middle of June until today - unsuccessfully - and just now I did read your reviews, I guess no solution will be found: my son left the PCTV box in Boston (in order to reduce his baggage volume), besides he will return to Harvard just on early September, and the 30 days deadline to return the product expired...!

Rayz, Katie, Ipeter, Chris, Zhenhui and Nick: I'm now a true "fried consumer" and I never did guess that a German company like Pinnacle could make so bad product and arduous to use (do you know that PCTV USB PRO - Pinnacle here in Brazil is sold from R$320 to R$699? It's equivalent to US$170 to US$370).

Anyway, I would like to get a hint from you: which product is better (and not expensive) to capture my olds VHS tapes => HD and get TV signal to PC? One thing more: do any of you think that Amazon could help me to solve this trouble where I submerged?

Thanks a lot; and I hope people do read reviews before buying, always...!

Nelson Sampaio