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Average Customer Review
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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
HD TV for ~$100.00
AWESOME HD over-the-air reception. But the min. specs are deceiving. You absolutely need greater than Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz for HDTV rendering. Otherwise pixelation of the video occurs and recordings of broadcasts lose synchronization between video/audio.
Also, channel changing is somewhat slow with min. configuration (Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz) but it's a minor...
Published 21 months ago by A New Dad
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Works, Sometimes. Bad Quality, Bad Software.
I've used this product for a few months now. I had read the reviews prior to purchasing it and thought that I would be able to figure out any problems I encountered. I was wrong.
Initially I tried to use the included software (the only way the remote will work). I got so frustrated with the slow, confusing and slow included software interface I found...
Published 17 months ago by Mark L. Harris
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Works, Sometimes. Bad Quality, Bad Software., February 21, 2008
I've used this product for a few months now. I had read the reviews prior to purchasing it and thought that I would be able to figure out any problems I encountered. I was wrong.
Initially I tried to use the included software (the only way the remote will work). I got so frustrated with the slow, confusing and slow included software interface I found instructions for using this product with Windows Media Center.
With Windows Media Center I can watch and record TV using this product. However the words are not always synced to the video. Pinnacle says they know it is a problem and do not have plans to address it. Thus my recordings are awfully unsynced and almost unwatchable (up to 30 second delay for sound).
The video quality is poor for cable channels. Watching this on my expensive computer monitor next to my TV, I would much rather watch on the TV. The digital channels do come in clear, but they do not work well with Windows Media Center (not Pinnacle's problem).
I am not having issues because I have an old computer- I have a new computer with a recent Nvidia Graphics Card, 2GB RAM and a Duo Core Centrino Processor. My processor never exceeds 70% while watching video with this product and doing a few other things at the same time.
Summary:
Poor Quality, Horrible Software, Plagued with Problems, But Usually Works
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
Not what Iwas looking for?, December 7, 2007
I have an HP 1.9 Dual core with 2.5 GB of ram running Vista Home Premium. I attached the antenna and install the stick. The NBC and CBS affiliates were found and 4 UHF stations. The picture was very fuzzy. I then used Vista Media program and found the same channels, however the picture was great. So now I could watch 2 channels on my laptop. I then went to the web link and download the beta drivers for cable channels. Set it up (over 2 hours) and I now had over 60 channels. The small view picture was ok but the expanded picture was poor. I then tried to set up the cable channels in the Media Edition and no signal was recognized. I then tried to set up the stick with my 2.4GHz desktop running Windows XP Media Edition 2005. After set up I would get 2-3 second of a picture then multiple errors messages and the application would need to close. With no support for the beta drivers, I returned the stick.
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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
HD TV for ~$100.00, October 24, 2007
AWESOME HD over-the-air reception. But the min. specs are deceiving. You absolutely need greater than Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz for HDTV rendering. Otherwise pixelation of the video occurs and recordings of broadcasts lose synchronization between video/audio.
Also, channel changing is somewhat slow with min. configuration (Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz) but it's a minor annoyance to have to wait up to 30 seconds after selecting another channel before the tuner actually responds.
Otherwise, worked like dream right out of the package!
For around $100.00....it can't be beat!!!
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
Software renders useless, January 24, 2008
The actual hardware works pretty good. However, the included software is the buggiest junk I have ever used. It crashes constantly. The software that is loaded from the flash when you plug it in crashes constantly and the Studio software creates DVDs that crash every computer and DVD player they are put in. The only way I could create a DVD was to first use the studio software to write it to a stereo mpeg file and then use my normal DVD software to burn the DVD. Unless you plan on spending another hundred dollars on working software or already have some, I would not recommend this.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Horrible, horrible software., February 1, 2008
Horrendous software comes with this product. Beware.
It says "Vista Certified", but barely works at all in Vista 32. It doesn't work at all in Vista 64. Oh, there are drivers for it - but Pinnacles "TV Center Pro" won't even start in 64, and other programs (including Media Center) can only partially use the card (will only tune some digital stations; can't use clear QAM, analog OTA or cable).
If you DO get TVCenterPro working, it's about as quick as walking uphill through cold molasses. Seriously, the stupid app takes about a minute to load, and changing any setting takes 10-15 seconds. Channel changing takes 3-4 seconds. This is on a dual core machine with 2gb ram. Godspeed anyone who has less; I can't imagine it'd even be usable.
To the reviewer that said his machine took 30 seconds to change a channel, but he considered that acceptable - are you insane???
It crashes with astonishing regularity on Vista 32 (tried on two machines - an Acer laptop and a self-built machine) and quite often on XP SP2. No, clean installs and brand new hardware cannot even save this app - it just plain sucks.
The ONLY way to salvage this hardware is to use it with something like BeyondTV or PowerCinema - expect to shell out an additional $100.
Now, for the "
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Pinnacle PCTV HD Ultimate Stick with ACER Dual-core Turion 1.8 gHZ laptop, December 30, 2007
I got the PCTV HD Ultimate stick for Christmas. I followed the directions in the quick-start guide to cancel the new hardware wizard, and to run the PCTV start application from one of the two USB storage drives provided on the device; it installed all the drivers and started up the application. The channel scan (with the device connected to the supplied antenna) took a long time, but found 4 analog and 6 digital channels. The analog channels were unwatchably snowy, the digital channels were fine if the signal quality (as reported briefly by bars on the screen when you switch channels) was good. If the signal quality was low on a particular channel, the software would seemingly hang forever while trying to acquire the signal. Most times I could close the application and restart and things would be fine, but sometimes I needed to end the task using the task manager and/or restart the computer. My laptop runs Vista Home premium and only has 1 gig of memory; I've ordered more memory and will update this review if it makes a difference in any of the salient points.
I live in a suburb of Boston, so there are several digital stations available and their signal strength is generally OK; I saved the old scan (from the settings section of the software) and rescanned, and picked up several more stations (including one which allowed me to see the Patriots 16 and 0 win over the Giants in HD, Go Pats!).
The installation left an icon for the software on my desktop; when I moved locations (in an effort to find an antenna position that would get the most stations), I initially started using the application from that desktop icon (after dismissing the autostart windows), but this often led to either the device's not being recognized or to its being recognized and all the stations' being reported as having 0 signal strength and quality. After many frustrating attempts, I settled on running the application from the PCTVStart autostart each time; this presumably reinstalls the drivers and initializes the device(s) in the proper order and I've had fewer problems. However, the software clearly isn't very bulletproof, especially the drivers, and the reporting of what goes wrong is somewhere between nonexistent and sketchy.
I tried recording a short (about 2 minute) stretch from one HD station; when I played it back, my CPU was pegged and there were dropouts and audio skips. I suspect that I need either more memory or a faster CPU (or both) for HD recording/playback.
The remote works well; however, it sometimes would come up assigned to the computer IR port instead of the HD Stick's IR port. (You see which is in use [and switch it] by right-clicking on PCTV remote icon on the taskbar.) This may have been related to driver loading issues alluded to above and hasn't happened since I adopted the policy of always starting from the PCTV start autostart.
Pausing and continuing live TV, at least for short periods of time, seems to work. (I have never had cable or Tivo, so am not in the habit of doing this yet, so I've only tried it a few times.)
This product is getting three stars from me (I would have given it 3.5 if the Amazon page would let me) because of the flakiness of the software and because the packaging was misleading about the CPU and memory resources required for recording HDTV. For the restricted functionality of watching digital TV over-the-air stations in an area with good reception on a sufficiently powerful laptop, I would give it 4.5 stars.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Don't bother., October 6, 2008
As others have mentioned the included software is almost useless. Using Windows Media Center, the sound and video are out of sync. No fix available, and never will be. No Mac support, unlike with the 800e version ( PCTV HD Pro which at least works with EyeTV, another $100 purchase ). I mistakenly thought that the Ultimate Stick would be an upgrade. It is not. I have attempted to use this as the cornerstone of a Media Center, with a 3.2Ghz Core 2 Duo with 4GB, 1TB Dell XPS 630i, a brand new machine running a superclean Vista 32 install. I have tested it on XP SP3 as well on a 3.4Ghz P4 with 4GB and 1920X1200 screen.
This is nothing more than a frustrating toy. The hardware has great potential, the software makes it useless. Keep looking.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Great product, but a little cumbersome., June 7, 2008
I really like this product. I purchased it to record video directly to disk for editing later. I like to have several cameras shoot an event and digitizing tape. For me synchronizing the scenes and selecting shots is the least favorite step in editing. If I am going to take the time to mix video at the event, then I want to easily prep the post production. This is a great solution as I can copy, import and immediately edit the avi file created. Now my laptop is a 'studio' that I can manage, no pun intended.
I didn't purchase it to watch TV. I need my pillow, not a laptop for that. Some might like to watch TV on their computer, but the real reason and the benefit of this device is to RECORD the broadcast. This is the portable version of the TIVO.
If you plan to edit you should plan to use something other than the quickstart version included. I really like the Pinnacle Studio products but to have a program that will operate without errors you should upgrade to the full suite. I also love Adobe Premiere and use both versions Pro and CS3, and find that Premiere Elements has a lot of power for a consumer product. Use whichever you want, but make sure to apply all of the patches. Here on Amazon you will find the best prices for the video editing software mentioned in this review.
You can see why I like it, now the cons. A little cumbersome to set up. Slow to respond. Lists the channels by string not number so 3 - 39 is found before 4. Control menus are not user friendly.
Over all, this was a good investment. Well built and complete with all of the cables and a handy storage pouch. Friends drool when I hand them this device. Don't recommend for the occasional TV watcher, but if you want to TIVO a broadcast, help yourself to this and you won't be sorry.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Higher cost is not equal to better quality (I learnt that the hard way), October 5, 2008
I bought this yesterday. Here is the scoop...
1. It does NOT work with Vista 64 bit edition. However, there is absolutely no way to figure that out from the box. The box says "Windows Vista Certified". I was very very careful to choose something that is Windows Vista compliant, and that is what I get. Deceiving practice by Pinnacle. Not impressive at all.
2. I uninstalled Vista 64 and installed Vista 32 just for this piece of hardware to work, and guess what? It is terrible. The software is very buggy. It crashes a lot (check their forums for how many people are having problems)
3. Sometimes, you get weird sounds from the speakers (like static noise). My computer is top of the line (3GB Ram, Core 2 Duo processor, nVidia 9700GTS). It definitely is not the fault of my computer.
On the positive side... the HDTV reception from the telescopic antenna was moderately good. I got 4 channels (so, it is not perfect. Just good). This is why I am giving it 2 stars instead of 1 star. It does work... sometimes... somewhat!
Update: I got the chance to use this for a week now. This is a terrible terrible piece of hardware. This is by far the worst portable TV tuner i ever bought, and ironically enough, it is the most expensive of all the ones i bought. The software sometimes just refuses to start, and hangs in an infinite loop trying to display the channel. You simply have to restart Windows to get around it. Also, sometimes you get stuck and you cannot change channels. Sometimes changing a channel takes a good 5 seconds to do (and tons of hard disk loading). The software is very very heavy and unoptimized.
Usually in life, decisions are not clear cut, but in this case, it is. Do NOT buy this thing. Obviously, the whole marketing strategy of this company is to sell to unsuspecting customers who never got the chance to read the reviews.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Pretty cool! Saves a step when recording TV shows for PSP, September 7, 2008
On initial install, I did have some problem, so I rebooted then plugged the USB stick back and it reinstall worked well. The updated software (recommended during install) does add a couple of other features.
As a TV tuner device, the quality is better than Slingbox Classic (low) but not as good as a PCI TV card. But since I am planning to record to shows for viewing on handheld like PSP, this is not a big deal.
As for the EPG, it is crap. Better to use Yahoo or MSN to get the schedule and just manually set the PCTV stick to on schedule.
One annoyance - it is difficult to record shows back to back. There has to be a min between shows, meaning you may miss the first minute of the next show or the last minute of the first show.
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