Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick Review

Recently I was handed a Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick to use on my new Dell Desktop.  At first glance, I was amazed that you can tune HDTV signals with a USB device that was so small.  The Pinnacle HDTV Pro Stick comes with the following items in the package:

If you have a laptop, then you have an HDTV-capable display, so why can’t you watch free over-the-air HDTV on it?  Most laptops today have a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9 or 16:10, and the minimum laptop resolution I’ve seen is equivilent to 720p.  If you take your laptop on the road, then it makes sense to keep a HDTV tuner ready, because who wants to deal with crappy hotel cable?

There’s no shortage of HDTV tuners for PCs, and new ones are USB-based so they can be used on laptops or desktops without any hardware installation.  Pinnacle has released several HDTV tuners that are USB capable, and their PCTV HD Pro Stick is one that can make your life easier.

Product Description
PCTV HD Pro Stick is the first ultra-compact USB 2.0 powered TV tuner in an attractive stick form factor that brings the brilliant sharpness of HDTV via ATSC to your PC. The new digital TV standard ATSC comes over the air and for free in high or standard definition, and there is no subscription required. In addition to ATSC, also standard analog TV (NTSC) can be received, via cable, satellite or antenna. The included Pinnacle TVCenter Pro software lets you not only watch TV but also record it. You can even pause live TV and resume exactly where you left off and you can rewind or fast forward. Good looks, great features and minimum size, will make the PCTV HD Pro Stick a must have wherever you are.

• Watch live high quality digital HD and SD TV without service fees from anywhere on your laptop
• Break free with the sleek USB 2.0 powered portable PCTV device
• Sit back and relax from afar with full remote control access
• The options are unlimited with full support for both analog (NTSC) and digital (ATSC) reception*
• Instantly transform your PC into a personal digital video recorder (DVR)
• Never miss a critical part of your favorite show again with pause, rewind and replay
• TimeShifting and automated digital recording of TV shows in SD and HD with Pinnacle TVCenter Pro and integrated Electronic Program Guide**
• Full support for Windows Media Center (Remote Kit for Windows Media Center is available separately)
• Eliminate the guess work by automatically recording shows direct-to-DVD and/or in the destination file format of choice (i.e. iPod, PSP, DivX, etc.)
• Capture from most consumer devices with analog outputs (e.g. VCRs, camcorders, DVD players, etc.) and then edit and enhance with the included Pinnacle Studio QuickStart software

* ATSC, the new digital broadcast standard, is now available in many areas of the United States. ATSC reception is dependent on many factors. The provided antenna will allow reception in areas where there is a good ATSC signal. In regions or rooms where the signal is not strong, an amplified rooftop antenna will be required. It is generally not possible to receive an ATSC signal while en route (e.g. in a car or train). Please consult with your local reseller or go to www.antennaweb.org for more information on areas covered and optimizing your reception.

Minimum System Requirements

Inputs & Outputs:

• TV antenna input (F-connector)
• S-Video (via included adapter)
• Composite Video (RCA, via included adapter)
• Stereo audio (1/8” headphone plug, via included adapter)

TV Standards

Package Contents

Installing the PCTV HD Pro Stick Hardware
Installation of the PCTV was a breeze, Windows Vista Ultimate found the USB device as soon as I plugged it in.  Before deciding to install the Pinnacle TV Center software, I figured I would give Windows Media Center a try.  Windows Media Center was able to located the newly plugged in tuner and asked me to configure the device.  It found the tuner as a Digital Tuner and with the antenna connected it was able to tune into all of the local HDTV Over the Air (OTA) stations I was able to locate.  When I connected my cable line to the PCTV Pro Stick, Media Center was not able to locate any of the analog channels.  After I ran into this issue, I figured it was time to install the TVCenter PRO software. (Editor’s note: The unit does not work in Vista x64, even with beta drivers).

Installing the TVCenter PRO software.
Instead of installing the TVCenter PRO software that was on the CD included in the package, I went ahead to Pinnacle’s website (www.pinnaclesys.com) and installed the latest version of the software.  The installation process for the TVCenter PRO software was very simple and easy to follow.

After the installation is complete, the TVCenter PRO software starts up to configure the PCTV HD Pro Stick and scan all the channels.  Since I was having trouble seeing my analog cable TV channels, I decided to configure the TVCenter to work with cable TV first.  After the initial scan, I was delightfully surpised to see that I could watch all analog channels through their software.  After this successfully worked, I closed the TVCenter PRO software and went back into Media Center.  Media Center reconfigured itself and was now able to see all the analog channels.  Know that this all worked was a big plus for me as I like to use Media Center as my primary interface.

Going back into the TVCenter PRO software, I tried configuring their Electronic Program Guide (EPG):
First, I was disappointed to find out that I would have to pay for guide service after the first year.  After accepting this and waiting a good 15 minutes for the Guide Data to load, I was disapointed to see that you would have to manually map the actual channel to the guide data.  (Not Fun.)

After mapping the channels, the guide worked well!

Overall, I would rate this product high.  The channel changing is fast, the picture quality is awesome.  The tuner itself is small, and it’s really nice that Pinnacle includes everything in the package to get started.  This is an easy carry in a laptop back to catch up on some TV when on the road or at the airport.  You could also use this at work, if you wanted a stealth way to catch up on Oprah during the day.

After installing the TVCenter software, I really love using this product through the Vista Media Center experience, the MCE Guide is much better than the included TVCenter PRO software.

On the downsides for this product consider the following:

QAM Support
The model of the PCTV HD Pro Stick that we had did not support Clear QAM,  ClearQAM is the new technology that is being used by Cable Companies to send HDTV channels down your regular cable lines.  I have been informed that Pinnacle has added this feature to their newer versions of this PCTV line of hardware.

TVCenter PRO does not let PC go to sleep.
The TVCenter PRO software has a background process that always runs called PMCLoader.exe, this process does not allow the PC to go into sleep mode.  I ended up running ‘MSCONFIG’ and disabling the PMCLoader.exe and the remoterm.exe processes from starting at startup.  After making this change, the computer was able to go to sleep again.

	REPORT CARD : Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick category rating comments Quality 4 Great video quality and antenna, dongle a little flaky Innovation 4 HDTV shrunk down to a little stick! Performance 5 Works great once it’s up and running Installation 3 Piece of cake for Media Center: Pinnacle’s software causes some problems Value 3 Good for on the road, but next generation should be less buggy. FINAL VERDICT: 4 out of 5 stars