Customer Reviews

Pctv HD Mini Stick

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

 

 

When I first heard anout this product, I was a bit skeptical, because of some of the bad reviews that this product had recived over the internet.

However, I said what the heck, I can always send it back if it doesn't work out.

Save to say, this little wonder works great on my Vostro 1500, despite the bad reviews. I live in a podunk little town, and I got six very strong Digital and HD signals, and that was even without the use of the external antenna included, wich I would not use anyhow, due to it's magnetic base.

All my Digital and HD stations come in great, with very little or no breakup. If it does this well in a small town like Palm Springs, I am dying to check out what it can do in a major metro area.

However, it is not without some minor flaws; the bundled software it uses is slow, and to be honest , it sort of sucks. I would reccomend using something else, if possible, such as Windows Media Player, or Dell MediaDirect for the best results.

I would highly reccomend this to any college student who doesn't want to fight over waat they want to watch either in thier dayroom, or spending needless money for a tv set for thier dorm room. I would also reccomend it to travelers waiting on a connecting flight with nothing to do, and it would be great for campers who don't want to sink thousands of dollars into a sattelite system for thier rig. All you need is this little wonder, a decent laptop PC, and a few minutes of setup time, and you can have a truly portable entertainment system that rivals any HD Home Theater system out there, at roughly one tenth the cost.


It's also very handy when the local power goes out, as some of the newer PC's have up to 16 hours of battery life, even on full power settings.

So I strongly reccomend this product, despite it's small faults.

I saw this item for sale (almost 1/2 price) during Black Friday last year and didn't see great reviews on it so decided against purchasing it since I didn't need another gadget. My brother had one and loved it so he ran out and bought another one and gave it to me, so why not use it since it's a gift? Well, I'm pretty amazed that I was able to get about 50 channels in Southern California and it comes in great, I've tried it at home and in the office on the second floor (with no windows). I also have recorded a couple of shows for playback. This tuner picks up better than the indoor antenna I have hooked up to my tv in my bedroom, I get the stations consistently whereas the Philips indoor antenna in my bedroom goes in and out and I have to readjust it all the time. The software is a bit clunky, I can't run it very well without having my laptop plugged in, on battery it doesn't seem to get enough power (so you're better off using this on a computer that has processing power, mine is a little Asus netbook that I'm using it on). I think if you're a big TV watcher then this product is worth the purchase. I'm not a TV person but it's definitely a fun item to have during long rides or lunch hour at work.

This is without a doubt the worst and most buggy piece of hardware I have ever owned. 1/2 the time it just doesnt work, it will rarely scan for channels, often freezes when changing channels, is mostly completely useless. If youre thinking of using your laptop as a portable TV, even if it has a fast processor and plenty of ram this is NOT the device to try. You will end up angry and frustrated just as I have.

If you have Windows 7, do NOT install the horrible software from PCTV. Just install the driver only. This stick works absolutely perfectly with Media Center. Grab a $20 Media Center remote from Amazon and surprise!: you just beat the cable subscription system.

Don't let the technically challenged detur you from purchasing this great product. First do not install the the included software. Simply download the native driver from the manufacturer website for the operating system that you are using and then run Windows Media Center tv setup and you are good to go. I have used both the included antenna and my local cable feed and I get flawless HDTV. The timeshifting abilities built into Windows Media Center are a perfect match for this tuner. One cavaet and this applies to all HDTV tuners you have to have a fast enough processor, enough memory and a decent video card to get acceptable results.

For the price, it is a great deal. The tuner works fine. The only complaint that I have is that the software that it comes with to view TV is a little glitchy and slow. For example, sometimes when you shrink the size of the window, you won't be able to drag the window to a different position. If stuff like this bothers you, I think there are other programs out there that can use this tuner (like Windows Media Center). Other than that, I am very happy with my purchase.

Found it cheaper at tigerdirect....Worth the money. Bought it a week ago. Easy to install. Great reception. Works better than the boxes I have hooked up to my TVs.
Love the convenience of it! Reception probably has a lot to do with your location. Guess I'm in a good place!

I bought this on sale before XMAS 2010 for the excellent price $40. Before I talk about the PCTV HD MINI STICK let me provide you the system I am running it on:
Dell Optiplex 620 with 3.2 GHZ Pentium 4, XP PRO, 3 GB of ram and 1 TB hard drive. Nothing outstanding these days, pretty midddle of the road two year old machine. The machine is a week old refurb so it's pretty clean in terms of software loads.

Installation is mechanically simple. It is as simple as plugging in any USB device into the PC. Either you connect it to over the air or cable. One or the other, but not both simultaneously. The device looks like a typical USB thumb drive. The kit comes with short extension so you only have to find an open USB port on the back of your PC, plug in the cable, plug in the PCTV tuner, then connect either the cable adapter or the over the air antenna adapter. I tried it both ways but now have it running with cable input.

The software is 120 MB. I know because I first tested it on my 4 year old Sony Intel Centrino laptop using the antenna. It worked fine with a very high quality HD over the air signal. Once tested on the laptop I deinstalled it and put it on by Dell desktop described above. The software setup is your typical clumsy Pinnacle approach. That is, non intuitive and slow to load and slow to execute commands. The software installation was a non event. It worked. I am still expoloring all the hidden options. Pinnacle often provides options that lead to trials that you end up having to buy an upgrade. So, I haven't been too excited about trying another feature because I hate buying something and then be asked to pay for another feature that's "optional."

CHANNEL SCANNING
Takes longer than a typical new TV. Cable channels come in as Unknown with the channel number but if you click on them once you can add the channel name (e.g., NBC 4 - 203). You can drag them to favorite channel list as well. Of course, it won't play encrypted channels.

Remote tuner
Mine works off and on. It's IR based but I think the IR mouse and keyboard are getting in each others way. I won't use it anyway. A right mouse click gives you access to key features such as channels so all you need to do is right click, click channels and pick another channel with your mouse.

How does it work as a HD TV TUNER?
The primary function of view HD TV works just fine. Yes, it works well albeit channel changes take far too long in my estimation. That is, don't expect it to act like the tuner on your Sony Flat screen. You select the channel and wait for what seems like an eternity.

Picture quality
HD is as good or better than my Sony Big Screen. I am pleased. I can use it on a my laptop or desktop.

Audio Quality
My computer system (desktop) has a basic set of speakers with a inexpensive sub woofer. It sounds fine. If you want to know more then you will have to ask somebody else with a better system that's installed the PCTV.

Crashes
When first installed on my Desktop the video stream would lock up and go black after 15 minutes. I believe it was caused by the power management scheme I had setup on the desktop. I am still in the trial mode of this package and have 30 days to make sure it's not another piece of buggy software from Pinnacle.

Day 2 update
Crashes continue. I have to reboot to run the program again. When I restart I always get DVBDecompressor file that won't close and I have to force it close. I think I am returning this buggy software. It reminds me of the time I tried Pinnacle Studio. That program stole endless hours from me.

60 day update --
After 60 days it won't even startup. This is typical Pinnacle buggy software. It simply crashes at startup. This is a waste of money. I uninstalled, reinstalled and it still crashes on startup. I even uninstalled it again AND restored my computer to an early date. I reinstalled and it still crashes. What a waste of money. I searched Pinnacle for updates and there are none. I refuse to waste any more time on this piece of junk. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!!!!

I have seen a few ..and this is as good as any...software could use some improvement...there is no way to fast forward except using the remote..

Software is not ready for windows 7. Downloaded latest from the Pinnacle site. A visit to the Pinnacle support site before I purchased would have been a good idea. Others report similar crashes with this, and no resolution other than wait for updated Pinnacle TVCenter Pro software.

The good news is that if you use just the Vista drivers and delete the Pinnacle TVCenter Pro software, Windows Media Player works well with the device itself. Even just using the included antenna, it picked up all my local channels, as well as some quite far away. The remote is useless without the Pinnacle TVCenter software. Hopefully Pinnacle will update the software so the whole package works. Until then this is a 1 star item...

UPDATE - 7 December 2009: Pinnacle support does not even acknowledge my e-mailed request for assistance. Prior purchases of Pinnacle products required zero interaction with support. I see they have updated software for non-US products, so maybe we will get a Win7 version in the US soon.