Comments on: Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick (801e) USB TV Tuner Review

By: josephb

josephb — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:24:14 +0000

After my Avermedia TV tuner USB connector broke off, I purchased te Pinnacle Super stick thing. I’ve used Avermedia on one of my laptops (Thinkpad T40) with no problems whatsoever. Watched cable TV and recorded to an external drive flawlessly. The unit, however, was a bit bulky. So I figured I’d try the $99, smaller, USB stick for a change.

That was my biggest tech mistake of 2009!
The software is flawed (I’m using it with XP Pro). It has a ridiculous delay after you press the RECORD icon, while the audio ‘hiccups’. When the unit finally starts to record and I click the STOP button, a confirmation box pops up!!!!!!!!!!!! “Are you sure you want to stop recording????” Suddenly the software sounds like a mother-in-law!!!! Why the &*^*% do you need to confirm stopping a recording?????
It’s moronic.
Oh, then there’s playback…looks like crap.
About the only clarity with the program output is in the still capture BMPs!!!!! 99 bucks for a frame grabber!!!! whoopy!!!!!

This product is crap. And what confirms this? Anytime a company omits its corporate contact info on its website, it means it’s got something to hide.
This is true with Pinnacle.

As for me, I’m going back to my clunky Avermedia tuner. It may be clunky, but it works. And that’s more than I can say about the Pinnacle debacle!

By: Julie

Julie — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:15:38 +0000

@MaryAnn I don’t believe there’s a way to play the video files from your DirecTV DVR on your computer. They use a special format if I remember correctly. Someone please let me know if this isn’t true…

By: MaryAnn

MaryAnn — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:04:35 +0000

I am not real computer literate so I need step by step instructions. I want to copy the shows I have saved on my direct TV DVR to my computer. I have a HP USB TV Tuner but the directions do not show how to setup for a DVR or I do not understand them. Any help will be greatly appriecated.

By: High Desert

High Desert — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:44:20 +0000

Everything I’ve read about Pinnacle mentions their lousy software, and I’m the owner of an older Pinnacle Dazzle with really crappy software, so I understand. My question is – will the PCTV HD Pro stick run successfully with just Windows Vista Premium Media Center, or is it necessary to install the Pinnacle package first?

By: Cat

Cat — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:32:34 +0000

Hi there,

I purchased the pctv from Pennacle last year. I just got a new computer and they can’t install it on my new computer without the disk and I can’t find it. Is there somewhere that I can go to download it to be installed?

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:43:35 +0000

I have purchased PCTV HD Pro Stick (801e) from best buy, it is a very very poor quality. When i used with PIV XP Dell Laptop, the laptop heated up within 15 minutes, they i continued to use, in the long run it will harm the laptop i believe. The laptop heated up in such a way we can make tea on it. If i remove this stick, Laptop worked very well, it did not heated up. If you record for more that 30 minutes, it will not record well.
When i tried with the high end system to certain extent it failed miserably. I had the following configuration.

Operating System: XP SP3
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: GA-73PVM-S2H
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4500 @ 2.20GHz CPUs)
Display: Samsung LCD monitor 22″

It installed, After that i was not able to watch video using Composite, Antena worked but not the composite input. After trying hard for two days some how made it work. I use Samsung LCD monitor 22″. On the screen it displays properly when we record small tiny line appears, I tried to capture using other software in vain. Very very bad experience. Do not waste your money.

By: djw

djw — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 23:58:53 +0000

why is no longer available this product, i did search in google and nothing. is there any other similar product
i need something to record hdtv in my pc, thanks

By: Julie

Julie — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:55:49 +0000

@Andres: I no longer have this item to double check, but if you look at the package contents image, you can see the included cable that has an S-Video connector, a stereo jack and an RCA video connector. There’s a picture of the cable on the Features tab of this page: http://pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/PCTV+Tuners/PCTV+Analog_Digital+PVR/PCTV+HD+Pro+Stick.htm

By: Andres

Andres — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:12:11 +0000

then you have said that this TV tuner has a RCA input, but i don’t see the cable with the 3 colours Red Yellow and White, can you solve me this question??

thanks

By: Evan

Evan — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:37:12 +0000

how is the windows software? please e-mail me

By: Julie

Julie — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:55:12 +0000

Jeffrey:

Thanks for the tip. I’ll try to get my hands on some Mac software to try with this tuner.

Bill:

The PCTV is not a converter box. It’s a tuner and it will continue to work after 2/19/09. You’ve always had the ability to pull in HD signals with an analog antenna (I’ve been doing it for quite a while now). The trick was that you need an HD capable TV, satellite box or cable box in order to show the signals / programs on your TV. You can go to antennaweb.org to see what channels are available in your area that can be pulled in with a regular antenna.

Shows can be recorded to your hard drive in MPEG-1/2 or DivX formats, or direct-to-DVD.

Jake:

Sorry, it just has one tuner, not two )

By: Jake Tongue

Jake Tongue — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:50:56 +0000

does it have dual tuners so u can watch one program whilst pulling in another

By: Bill Quinlan

Bill Quinlan — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 04:20:03 +0000

Thanks for the review...

are you saying that this works like a converter box so that it will continue to work after 2/19/09 even if you are using an analog antenna instead of cable?

Second, when you record something what form does it take? avi? mgeg4? is there a choice?

thanks again for the review

By: Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:17:02 +0000

I have a similar version of this USB TV stick and I have to agree, this TV Tuner kicks ass. For this TV tuner in fact u don’t even have to use windows. If u use somewhere like eyeTV for the mac, the TV tuner works extremely smooth. Under windows however, I had bad experiences with it; it would be super laggy and would not let me use the DVR/time rewind features. Heck, even under OS X the remote control that comes with the stick works.