Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick, my experience

rdbrindle · Member Joined: 02 Oct 2007 Location: United States

Hey Guys-
I reading all of your comments about the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick... They all seem preety positive, but I can't get my device to work correctley.
I bought the stick at Fry's and installed it on my computer (Win XP SP2, INTEL 3 GHZ HT, 1 GB ram).
I was very impressed with the ASTC signals... I have not seen anything better.

My problem, I think, is with the software. I have tried all of the patches- upgraded from 4.7 to 4.9 with no luck.
While I am watching the digital channels, the program will occasionally hang- 2 to 3 times in an hour - the screen goes blank and the program doesn't respond- I have to kill the process through the task manager and processes section.
I don't think it has anything to do with reception or my machine. I have even reduced my displays color pallet from 32 bit to 16 bits to see if that could be the problem (I had an old Happuage TV card that did better in 16 bit color). I have re-installed the old software and re-installed the driver. I have researched alternate TV programs and have come up empty handed.

I would like some help... digital channels are the only channels worth watching here... I just want this thing to work.
Do you guys have any suggestions? Things for me to try? I have a few days to solve the problem before I should return it. I don't want to give up because of the favorable hardware reviews.

Any help would be greatly apprieciated.
BRGDS/ Russ

GreyDeath · Posted: Oct 02, 2007 23:50

I bought one of these a while back, but returned mine after having a bunch of problems with it. USB2 is required which I didn't have on my encode machine, so I tried it out on my laptop and on my gaming rig, all had problems with the capture or viewing software.

Sometimes the Audio would be out of sync with the Video on some clips. Sometimes I'd capture an hour's worth of The Tube only to find out it only captured 5 minutes, though it seemed to be recording the whole hour.

My solution for capturing HD content was to buy a Samsung DTB-H260F set top box, and just run it through my ADVC-100. Since I don't have an HDTV (but widescreen--it's 10 years old!) and still convert them to DVD, S-video is fine enough for me. It's great watching 16:9 content and not have to zoom in, losing picture resolution.

I'm glad ppl are having a better time with the Pro Stick than I did. It is a neat little device, but I think the software has much to be desired.
_________________
"*sigh* Warned you, we tried. Listen, you did not. Now SCREWED, we all will be!" ~Yoda

Tchail · Member Joined: 07 Mar 2004 Location: United States

I have been using the PCTV 100e, but found the lure of having access to digital channels too great, so I picked up the HD Pro Stick (which is the 800e model).

After having used Studio 9 Quickstart and the PCTV software for the last two years, I thought I was pretty comfortable with Pinnacle's products. So Friday night, I installed the PCTV software, and Studio 10 Quickstart.

After the channel scan, I was about to pick up about 15 analog channels and 29 digital channels. I have to admit, even using rabbit ears, the quality of the digital channels is pretty good.

I even managed to record this week's Star Trek Remastered off of one of the local digital channels (though it recorded in 16x9).

My trouble began when I tried to use Studio 10 Quickstart to capture an old video tape off of my VCR. When I started Studio 10, I received the error to the effect that I either had an invalid license key or no license at all, and that I should reinstall.

After three attempts at uninstalling and reinstalling the software, I finally decided to contact Pinnacle tech support. They pointed me to a web page to deal with this problem. Apparently, I'm not the only person who has had this error, because Pinnacle makes available a little programe to edit the Windows Registry to remove Pinnacle products. Two attempts later (the first time I didn't read the directions all the way through), I finally get Studio 10 working. But to do this I had to uninstall PCTV.

So I reinstall PCTV, only to discover that I cannot receive digital channels. And PCTV had worked fine the night before!

My solution was to completely uninstall both PCTV and Studio 10 using the method provided by tech support. Then I first installed PCTV, then Studio 10, and finally the Studio 10 patch.

Now I've got PCTV receiving digital channels, and Studio 10 working. Great. Except now when I connect my VCR, I get an error message that there is no valid video signal detected.

Arrrrgggghh!

I checked tech support again, but the only references to this kind of error pertained to either the 500 or 700 series, neither of which applies to my situation.

End the end I gave up and plugged in my old 100e and captured the video that way. It worked with Studio 10 and captured fine.

But I ended up blowing half a day on this.

Am I alone in my experience with this product?

-Tchail

vhelp · ..Semi Neutral.. Joined: 31 Mar 2001 Location: New York

Tchail,

I too have had trouble with running Studio 10 (the one that came with my
pctv stick. I quickly just gave up on it, but only because I knew that it also
came with it's other capture (PVR) software, Pinnacle TVCenter Pro. I use
that to do my capturing of Analog (vcr/cabletv/laserdisc, etc.) and HD ditigal
OTA sources. In addition to HD capturing, the TVCenter Pro also includes
the features for capturing through Composite/RCA and S-Video sources. I've
used it during my initial testing of this product. But, although my system is
capable of capturing analog sources using RAW yuv or Huffy codec, I have
since setteled better, with my Pinnacle Studio AV/DV pci card.

My projects normally go like this:

HD: --> capture using the pctv hd stick using the TVCenter Pro software
Analog anything: --> capture with my Pinnacle Studio AV/DV card w/ VirtualDub

-vhelp 4403
_________________

VHELP's - Sample Clips [last: 12.29.06],
my YouTube videos

yoda313 · POLLSTER Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Location: sector 001

anyone have problems capturing analog cable through the pctv hd stick? I just bought one for 70.00 at best buy for my vista pc today. I was hoping to use it as a tivo replacement with my new 500gb harddrive. So far it doesn't read my analoge cable stations. It scans them it just won't display them.

I have it split with a four way splitter to three sources - my high def dvr, my tv, and now the usb adapter.

Is there something I'm missing? I'm currently 7th in line for the online chat with support so hopefully I can find out that way.

If this doesn't work maybe I'll return it for the ati usb capture card - by the way I have no free pci slots - a firewire card and a sata card filled up my four slots (well three really since I have a pcie nvidia card in it).

EDIT - I got it working

It turns out the software it came with wasn't that red hot.

I actually got it working with windows media center. It even got the program guide listing working properly. I think I will like this. My next step is either to get a bonified windows media center remote or I think I will finally work on getting my xbox set up as an extender. I will use a lan cable to get a constant stable connection at 100 instead of using wifi.
_________________
Live long and prosper - and rock on dude!!!!

starwarrior29 · Member Joined: 08 Mar 2003 Location: US

yoda, what software did you use for it to work with media center? I am so tempted to get one of these especially with the sale this week at Best Buy but have stayed away because a lot of reviews were saying it doesn't work with media center, the only HD channels that I would be using it for would be the 4 major networks clear qam channels.

yoda313 · POLLSTER Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Location: sector 001

Actually I haven't rigged it for hd through media center yet. It does basic analog just fine - I'm not using a box by the way just the straight cable.

And no software was needed. I had installed the included software for the stick but I couldn't get it to read the analog channels.

All I did was boot up media center which comes with vista home premium. I went into to tv setup and went through the wizard and worked like a charm.
_________________
Live long and prosper - and rock on dude!!!!

edDV · Posted: Jan 01, 2008 10:04

TBoneit · Member Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Location: USA

vhelp · ..Semi Neutral.. Joined: 31 Mar 2001 Location: New York

Hi all

I just wanted to make a short update on my PCTV HD Pro Stick experience.

I hadn't used my PCTV Pro for nearly a year. I had other things in-between my pc and various
capture cards (hardware, usb, firewire, and analog) and was mostly settled on my Pinnacle
Studio AV/DV (of which I am still using) but because our great tv series, "LOST" was comming
on today (and yesterday) I needed to re-setup my HD hardware. Well, as it turns out, good
old USB came to the rescue. All I did was re-plug in my PCTV HD Pro into the USB port and it
was that simple. No need to reconfigure anything or software/driver, etc. It just worked like
right out of the box and I was able to record my favorite series, "LOST". The brief details will
follow shortly, below.

Today, (after "LOST" finishes) I decided to give re-SCANNING of the channels another go, for the
NBC station. Well in short, I am getting it too. If you read on (way above, you'll see that I
did make a special note about some weard phenomina about receiving some stations during a
certain period or time of the year -- last mid February. Well, it seems that I can get these
channels in January too. I wish I had tried in December, but I was too lazy then.

The (1920x1080i) capture/recording details..

I am *VERY* happy to report that I finally managed to test it out on 1920x1080i sources, and it
was a smashing success. The picture quality and the picture/sound all previewed (played) inside
the PCTV HD Pro's (Pinnacle) software flawlessly. No hickup in the audio (like in my Hauppauge
1600 experience) and recording was as simple as recording my usualy (ABC-7) 720p source.

Playing back the 1080i (note, for some reason, DGIndex is reporting it as 1088i) is without a
hitch -- perfect.

I don't know.. I just love this little stick. It just works..!!

Hmmm... other than that, I don't know what else to report. I'm so happy

-vhelp 4509
_________________

VHELP's - Sample Clips [last: 12.29.06],
my YouTube videos

dphirschler · Ut Joined: 29 Aug 2001 Location: Kennesaw, GA - USA

It's on woot this morning for $39.00

Darryl

jagabo · Member Joined: 09 Dec 2005 Location: none

How well is the QAM enabled beta software working now?

edDV · Posted: Feb 22, 2008 11:32