PCTV HD Pro Stick USB2 HDTV Tuner for Free HD

I bought this tuner about two weeks ago or so. I thought I'd settle into using it for a while before I remark on it. So, after using it for a while, here's what I think: depending on what you are expecting from it, it might suit your needs just fine, but then again, it might not.

Here's what I wanted from it: I wanted to receive HDTV broadcasts on my laptop (Dell Inspiron 1505 with Core Duo 1.83Ghz + 1Gb RAM + 80Gb HD); record shows of interest to me; burn a DVD from the recorded shows; project live broadcasts onto my DLP projector for a home theater experience on the cheap.

The Good:

The USB device *does* work. After setting up the required software to recognize the USB device, I was able to receive digital broadcasts just fine. When the broadcast was in high definition, the resulting picture on my laptop was really very good -and Dell doesn't have the nicest laptop displays, either. Overall, I can't complain about the USB device other than it gets very hot, hot enough that if you touched it with, say, your upper arm, you'd jerk your arm away quickly because it's that hot to the touch. The little antenna that's included should receive nearby TV stations just fine.

On my laptop, high-def broadcasts used about 35-45% of my CPU. Recording a show in native format jumped it up to about 50-60% (the native video format is MPEG that requires about 6Gb of space for every one hour recorded). I didn't try compressing on-the-fly because I feared for dropped frames -I'd rather compress later knowing I'll not lose any frames along the way. If I had the very latest Core Duo 2 chip and the fastest speed available, I'd probably feel okay about compressing on-the-fly.

The Bad:

The software that comes with this device is awful when it's working, and often times, the software isn't working at all. There are two software programs -the one that runs your TV tuner, and the one that manages your recorded TV shows (that one is called Studio 10 QuickStart).

The software to run your TV tuner comes on CD, but it has to be updated several times by downloading patches over the Internet during the install process. Stupidly, the documentation says you're supposed to plug-in your TV tuner before you start the installation -every other USB hardware device out there says DO NOT plug in the device until the software is installed firstly. Plan on spending at least 30 minutes to install, patch, patch, reboot, and patch again. The installation is really bad -if you try clicking "Back" to return to a previous screen in the installation process, the whole installation process aborts unexpectedly. So, read carefully each screen before you click Continue!

As bad as the TV tuner software is, Studio 10 is even worse. You'll need to patch this software, too, which takes it from version 10.5 off the CDROM to 10.7 after all the patching is completed. Plan on spending another 30 minutes for this installation.

I've been trying to use Studio 10 for several days now. Sometimes it produces a DVD file (in the .iso format) and sometimes I get "Buffer overrun" errors when it's creating the DVD file. I've got a support ticket open with Pinnacle on this...I'm hoping it's a problem with free disk space on my harddrive (I've got between 12-20Gb free). I guess if the software were reliable, it'd be okay, but the whole process of creating a DVD from a recorded show is S-L-O-W.

There are numerous other things I don't like about the software. Poor Help documentation to explain things (if you're not a video editor expert, heaven help you). The program doesn't correctly determine whether the aspect ratio is 4:3 or 16:9 from the first frame of the video file (but you can manually set it the way you like). No estimated time remaining for how long it's going to take to create that stupid DVD file or burn a stupid DVD. Sheesh.

And if all that I wrote wasn't bad enough for you, there is one more complaint: I can detect an out-of-sync condition between the video and audio playback, both during live broadcasting and on recorded shows. So, if you're watching someone talk, the audio you're hearing doesn't align *exactly* to the video you're seeing. It's a definitely perceptible lag of maybe a tenth of a second or two, so it's bad enough that it's annoying but not quite unwatchable unwatchable. If you've got perfectionistic tendencies, this may be a problem for you. If you're just watching football or any other sport or show where you're just listening to a narrative, this isn't a problem for you.

So, if all you want to do is watch NFL football or other sports or nature shows in high-definition on your widescreen laptop, and you're reasonably close to a TV tower (probably within 10 miles), you're probably going to like this tuner once you get past the software installation. It's a four-star product.

If you're wanting to do anything at all with the recorded TV shows, you're not going to be pleased. You may be pleased with the final DVD you create, but you'll think to yourself, "There has to be an easier way...". That's what I'm thinking, anyway. For you, this is a two-star product if you can get the software to work, and one-star if you can't.

Also, if you're watching shows where people talk on-screen (not off-screen), the out-of-sync audio/video issue will annoy you. If old-fashioned TV sets can master audio/video synchronization, why can't your laptop do the same?

Good luck!

Update on February 16, 2007: I discovered a bug with Studio v10.7 that Pinnacle Support confirmed. If you try to create an .iso filename that is too long, the file creation will abort unexpectedly as it tries to write-out the last frame. You could be creating a file with 100,000 frames and you'll die after an hour of processing! How long is too long? I don't know, but here's my advice. Create an .iso file with your name of choice, but create it with just a 100 frames or so. If it works, fine, you'll have no trouble. If it fails, then shorten your filename and try again. This is testimony to the "quality" of a software product that is in a version 10.7 release!!!

UPDATE on September 10, 2007 ---

After setting this product aside for the summer, I dug it out to watch a preseason football game. Egads, the stupid thing didn't work!! Nasty error messages during software start-up, but what was different? Seems like a recent Windows XP patch went afoul of the Pinnacle software that runs this HDTV device. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the Pinnacle software from the original CD -no dice. I went to Pinnacle's website, and found several later versions: 4.9.2 and 4.9 (neither is fully tested for this PCTV HD Pro Stick), and 4.7, which is what I chose to use. The 4.7 version at least got the Pinnacle device to work...BUT my laptop freezes up often (maybe 8 times during a full football game) if I use the time-delay recording feature. The channel switching is terribly slow, and even if I don't use the time-delay feature, the software still locks up. In short, Pinnacle has yet to offer users a solid version of their software that will run this product as you'd expect. Maybe the 4.9 releases are that type of version, but then, as of this writing, Pinnacle says "install at your own risk" -not a very good sign. Hopefully this will still work during a hurricane outage, which is one key reason why I bought this in the first place. Pretty disappointing. I originally rated this product 3-stars, but if I could change it (I can't), I'd make it a 2-star product.

UPDATE on March 19, 2010

Well, this little tuner has become an orphan, of sorts. Pinnacle, the company that made this tuner, sold there hardware business off to a former competitor, Hauppauge. But there is a way to make this tuner work pretty nicely now with Windows Media Center. Do a Google search on "pctvsystems" and then click Support > Downloads > Windows Media Center. There, you can download a plug-in for Windows Media Center that works very nicely. My Windows Media Center is running on a Windows 7 laptop. Using Windows Media Center, I've not had any of the troubles using the time-shifting and recording functions.

This product works pretty well. I installed it on a home built system running Windows XP pro. The video card is an Nvidia GeForce 7600 based card and is decent for games and video. The motherboard is a MiniBB Shuttle SD11G5 running with a Mobile Pentium-M 740 CPU (1.73 GHz). It has 1 GB of RAM. So the system is similar to a decent laptop. The installation of the Pctv HD Pro Stick and software setup on Window XP went smoothly. I connected the Pctv device to my house antenna using a coax cable. At first the HD Pro Stick would not find any channels. In fact it displayed that there was an error finding any analog and digital channels. I did a little checking on the Pinnacle forums and realized that I had two possible things preventing the Pctv device from working. One was that I had my anti-virus running during the setup. The second was that I had another USB device (an audio mixer) connected to the PC. I disabled the anti-virus and disconnected the USB audio mixer then ran the channel setup again. This time everything worked fine. All of the channels my home HD television set can tune in can also be tuned in with the Pctv HD Pro Stick.

Watching HD television shows You do not need Windows XP media center or any other software to use the Pctv HD Pro Stick to watch television channels on your Windows XP computer. I thought I would mention that because it wasn't obvious in material I found before purchasing this product. The Pro Stick comes with software necessary to tune in channels and view them using a Windows XP computer.

As some other reviewers have mentioned, the device and software for tuning in television does takes a lot of the system cpu processing time. It was usually around 100% of the cpu usage. Running in that mode there is a noticeable lag in the picture and sound. By default the Pctv isn't setup to utilize the system's video card hardware in the television processing. There is a checkbox for using the video card in the Pctv setup. After I turned that on I saw a real improvement in performance. The cpu usage while watching an HD channel dropped by at least 40% and the picture/sound lagging went away. I think the big problem other reviewers have is that either they didn't find the hardware processing option in the Pctv setup (it isn't real obvious) or their laptops aren't equipped with very good video card hardware.

The included remote control works nice and is a good feature.

As another test I tried another Software product for watching and recording television using the Pctv HD Pro Stick. I tested the Beyond TV (v4.5) from SnapStream. The software installation for that product was pretty easy. After the installation it recognized the Pctv tuner and in the BeyondTv setup I selected some local HD channels that it found from the Pctv device. Once the BeyondTv software finished it's setup I could use that program to watch television. BeyondTV also can connect to the internet and provide a TV schedule for the channels I setup. I was able to select a show and schedule it for recording. The BeyondTv program was not able to make use of the Pctv remote control (at least I couldn't get that part to work). I mention this because it is nice to know that the Pctv HD Pro Stick is supported and can run with other software.

I am giving four stars to the Pctv HD Pro Stick as it does a good job of tuning in television stations as advertised. It does record the television channels quite well (although you have to make sure you have enough hard disk space). The only knock would be on the included software. It could be improved to provide better trouble-shooting suggestions and it should include a separate section on optimizing the performance of the device (like detecting and utilizing the system's video hardware).

Overall I am satisfied enough with the product that I am planning on buying a couple more Pctv HD Pro Stick devices for some other computers I use.

Buy PCTV HD Pro Stick USB2 HDTV Tuner for Free HD Now

I read all the negative comments from previous reviewers but took the chance and got the HD tuner suspecting the core problem other people are experiencing is due to older PC hardware/drivers. I installed the PCTV HD on a new Core 2 Duo with 2Gb RAM and CAD level graphics card on a WinXP laptop. The installation was a breeze though had to go through 2 cycles of downloading updates from Pinnacle and rebooting all driven by the install wizard. After the 2nd reboot it took me to the setup and scanned for local analog and HD channels without any problems. Unlike what one reviewer said, both local and HD channels appear fine and was able to record the programs fine (just using the little antennea that came with the tuner). I did play around with the different record modes (DVD vs long play ...) so poor recording quality may have something to do with perhaps the PC hardware, reception, and record mode.

The only thing I have yet to figure out is to how to key in channels not previously selected in my preferred list using the remote.

Otherwise this is an excellent product that is if you have the hardware and OS to support it.

Read Best Reviews of PCTV HD Pro Stick USB2 HDTV Tuner for Free HD Here

I'm one of the unlucky chumps who upgraded to Pinnacle's software version 4.53 after loving what I was seeing after the initial installation of 4.50 from the cd-rom. Once I installed 4.53, the system crashed when changing channels, was extremely sluggish, and HD channels no longer appeared smooth. Some upgrade!

I immediately went to Pinnacle's support forum for help. Not surprisingly, there are several other users with my exact same problem. Also not surprisingly, these "early-adopters" were mostly experienced computer users. Pinnacle's canned responses on the forum provided no assistance whatsoever. (Check it out for yourself before you spring for this product.) Great. I'm on my own.

Worse, it won't un-install, even with a Microsoft system rollback. After rolling back to a previous Microsoft restore point, I reinstalled 4.50 from CD-ROM. Even after the attempted uninstall, my channel list from a previous channel scan was still in my system, but it would no longer display HD channels. I tried uninstalling 4.50 from the Uninstall function on the cd-rom, then re-installed. Now the program will no longer scan for channels at all. It's completely caput. It's going back today and I'm spending the extra cash to get another USB TV Card.

HOWEVER, the hardware seems to work with BeyondTV software. The OEM software that comes with the unit is just plain poor. The company would do better to partner with this company than shipping their own software.

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First installed this in my laptop and was very disappointed since I could not get it to run, kept crashing, locking CPU at 100% etc. After reinstall, a co-worker asked me if I read the minimum requirements (what, you are supposed to do that? ). I was way under minimum req. After installing on my home P2.4, 1GB, 64MB video, which is still well under minimum req for HD, the performance was better, but still not great. Then I installed it in my other PC; 3.4Ghz, 1GB, 128 video, and the performance was incredible. I get 13 channels at my home; 9 in HD. I could not believe the quality of the picture and sound; almost perfect. about 99% perfect picture; just the very rare flash or signal loss. I suspect alot has to do with you location and how close you are to the signals being broadcast from your cities. Check

The HD stick is really cool if you want to take it with you to install in other machines (ie Home PC, Laptop, friend's PC, etc.). Very easy to port the small stick and antenna. Be sure to install the 4.52 Patch which can be downloaded from the Pinnacle website; corrects lots of issues. I called the Pinnacle support when I first got the item, but they were pretty much useless (no surprise; not many of these companies hire anyone other than $5 hr guys from India; if they dont know where the USA is located in the first 10 seconds, then I just hang up). they never even mentioned the minimum sys requirements.

As for that minimum req's; check the Pinnacle website, but I would suggest at least Pentium 3.4 or higher; 1GB RAM, and 128MB video if you want to view HD. You will need more RAM and lots of disk if you want to record. The quality of the recordings is very good. For the laptop, you will want at least the 1.8Ghz Mobile, 1GB RAM, 128 video.

Again, if you have the horsepower, this is an awesome item. I just hope the local channels continue to broadcast in HD (for free), and it sure would be nice if they would broadcast ESPN too. Sure beats the good ol' days of "bunny ears"

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