Review - Pinnacle PCTV HD Stick

by Mark Shapiro

This is pretty cool. This small little gadget plugs into your laptop or your desktop Windows machine via a USB 2.0 connection and lets you watch high quality HD video over the airwaves. It also picks up and plays local analog television signals. If you have a cable TV connection, instead of an antenna, you can plug your cable connection into this gadget and now you can watch cable TV on your computer.

Yes, these types of computer video tuners have been around for a while but this is one of the smallest and easiest to use that I have ever played with. Plus, with a good antenna and a strong signal, the digital HD signal looks really, really good.

Not only can you watch TV but the bundled software enables you to record your favorite shows to your hard drive and then play them back at your leisure. The DVR (digital video recorder) software is designed to let you program your computer to tape your favorite shows while you are away from the machine. You can save your recordings in a variety of formats – for playback on a computer or a mobile device, etc. These include Apple iPod, Sony PSP, DivX, etc.  You can also burn your recorded show directly to a DVD.

Pinnacle also includes a light version of their Studio video software. This version, Studio QuickStart 10, enables you to do basic video editing and cutting. For example, you can record hours of your favorite show and then remove all the commercials.

There are two versions of the Pinnacle PCTV HD Stick – the  $99 Pinnacle PCTV HD Stick comes with the basic Pinnacle TVCenter Pro software and a mini antenna. The $130 version – the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick comes with a telescoping antenna with a magnetic base, miniature remote control, and the ability to capture analog video via a special adapter in a variety of formats including DivX, Sony PSP and Apple iPod compatible formats. Not only can you watch your old analog videotapes, now you can capture and digitize them. Pretty cool. You also get the premium Electronic Program Guide enables you to plan your recordings up to 14 days in advance)

 Making it all work

After you install the program, there are two main components of the program that live on your desktop - the actual Media center and the Settings screen. And, as they start with different letters, the icons for each may end up on different sides of your desktop screen. Luckily, you can access the components from the Windows start button - programs. Hopefully, in the near future, Pinnacle will incorporate the settings icon as part of the of the Media Center application, not separate.

I found the install process to be quite slow. Plus the bundled software on the CD is not the latest version and doesn’t work well. You will have to upgrade and download the newest version. One of my computers, the request for upgrade screen appeared automatically while on a different machine, I had to manually go into the settings screen and initiate the upgrade.

This set up process is not obvious and is not covered well in the miniscule manual.  Once you have upgraded the software, you then need to start the settings icon and go to TV channels. There you can scan for your local channels. This includes digital and analog, as well as cable TV channels and Internet radio. The high quality scan process is slooooooow and easily took over a half hour even on a faster computer. The Quick scan is faster but still takes too long.

Once you get your local stations scanned, which takes much too long, you exit the settings screen and go back to the Pinnacle Media Center to watch. I found that the local HD stations came in very nicely, even with my underpowered 2.4 GHz PC. There was some break up on some of the stations but overall the HD looked and sounded very good. Regular analog TV was not so good. Some of the stations were acceptable but most were much too noisy to watch. Part of that is the antenna.

The digital antenna works OK but if you want to get really good looking digital TV, you need to get a good HD digital antenna. When I replaced the bundled antenna with a HDTV digital antenna, the signal was incredible. But then again, the HDTV antenna I used cost about as much as the PCTV HD Stick.

Just for a lark, I hooked up an old rabbit ears antenna that had a UHF loop as well. As expected, the analog signals came in much better than with the bundled digital antenna, but of course, now I couldn’t receive digital signals.

Once you have the stations scanned, you probably want to set up the Electronic Program Guide. This process is buggy as well and it took me repeated efforts to get the software to download. I could never get the EPG to work right.   However, if you do get it downloaded and working, you do get the service for a year without charge.

The bottom line – this is a very cool product that enables you to watch and record high quality digital and HD video on a laptop or desktop computer. The software and instructions are still evolving but is good enough. The hardware works fine even though the software could use a lot of work.

 Availability, Pricing

The PCTV HD Stick and the PCTV HD Pro Stick are both available at popular retailers and online resellers including Best Buy, Fry's, J&R, Microcenter, Dell, CDW.com, TigerDirect.com, Amazon.com and Buy.com. 

The PCTV HD Stick suggested retail price is $99.99. The PCTV HD Pro Stick suggested retail price is $129.99. 

 Tech Specifications:

First off, the PCTV HD Stick needs a lot of computer power, especially if you want to watch HD with it. You need Windows® XP with SP2 or Windows Vista (32 bit); at a minimum, an Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz, Pentium M 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 processor.  For HDTV reception, a Pentium D or Pentium Dual Core or equivalent AMD Athlon 64 processor is recommended. RAM: Windows XP - 256MB RAM (512MB recommended). Windows Vista - 512 MB (1GB or more recommended). DirectX® 9 or higher compatible graphics card (64 MB real memory required for HD).  DirectX 9 or higher compatible sound card (Creative® Audigy® or M-Audio® recommended)

 When I installed the program and plugged in the tuner on my 1.6 Gjhz laptop, the digital signal kept breaking up. It was watchable but not enjoyable. When I installed it on my 2.8 GHz machine, the video looked a lot better and the break-up was minimal. When I added the professional third party HDTV antenna, the signal looked very good and I didn't have any break up at all.

 The better your machine, graphics card and antenna, the better your HDTV experience will be.

What is Digital TV and why do you care

According to Pinnacle Systems, Digital Television (DTV) is a new broadcasting technology that will transform your television viewing experience. DTV enables broadcasters to offer television with movie-quality picture and sound. It can also offer multiple programming choices, called multicasting, and interactive capabilities.

Converting to DTV also will free up parts of the scarce and valuable broadcast spectrum. Those portions of the spectrum can then be used for other important services, such as public and safety services (police and fire departments, emergency rescue), and advanced wireless services.

The Transition to Digital TV

TV stations serving all markets in the United States are airing digital television programming today, although most will continue to provide analog programming through February 17, 2009. At that point, full-power TV stations will cease broadcasting on their current analog channels, and the spectrum they use for analog broadcasting will be reclaimed and put to other uses.

The Commission's digital tuner rule specifies that as of March 1, 2007, all new TVs must include digital tuners. This rule prohibits the manufacture, import, or interstate shipment of any device containing an analog tuner, unless it also contains a digital tuner. Despite this prohibition on manufacture and shipment, retailers may continue to sell analog-only devices from existing inventory. As a result, at the point of sale, many consumers may not be aware that this equipment will not be able to receive over-the-air-television signals after February 17, 2009.

www.pinnaclesys.com.