What is this?
This PVR eliminates cable clutter with the USB bus-powered architecture, and has a Matrix feature that can scan through the different channels, creating thumbnail-sized previews. Out of the box, you can record in MPEG-1, but for an additional $5, you get MPEG-2 also.
Pinnacle PCTV USB2 ReviewJuly 9th, 2004
Pros: Compact and stable; very good performance; easy to use; USB-powered (no AC adapter required); remote included.
Cons: No "sleep" timer; no stereo audio - mono only; MPEG-2 compression costs $5 more.
Verdict: The Pinnacle PCTV USB2 is compact, installs easily, works as one would expect and even exceeds expectations in many aspects of its operation.
Marginally larger than a pack of cigarettes, the Pinnacle PCTV USB2 is a TV tuner/video capture device for Windows XP and USB 2.0 only. Although there have been some USB 1.1 TV tuners in the past, it seems that the makers have made USB 2.0 a minimum due to slow performance on the old USB standard. The PCTV USB2 requires no external power supply - it is bus-powered through the USB cable. Just to remind, Windows XP is also a minimum requirement. Apple's Jaguar and Panther aren't on the list of supported platforms.
Package Contains (as per Pinnacle) - PCTV USB2 external TV tuner with hyperband cable TV support
- Hi-Speed USB compliant cable, length ca. 1.8m/6ft
- Infra-red remote control transmitter
- 2 AA batteries for transmitter
- PCTV Vision WatchTV and PVR application
- PCTV Assistant
- HTML documents on support, service, warranty and registration
Minimum System Requirements (as per Pinnacle) - PC with Pentium III or Athlon 1GHz or Celeron/Duron 1.2GHz
- 1 free Hi-Speed USB compatible port
- 256MB of RAM
- DirectX 8 (or higher) compatible graphics controller
- DirectX 9 (or higher) compatible sound controller
- Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home (Service Pack 1)
Setting up The first thing that we did was to connect the PCTV unit to a USB 2.0 port. For some reason, Windows had the proper drivers already. It may have gotten them from Windows Update because the PC had a permanent high-speed connection to the Internet. At any rate, the drivers were installed, but we needed to install the applications so that we could make it all work. Installing the software was simple - run the CD, install, reboot and then use the PCTV USB2 Assistant to scan for channels. There is a Favorites feature for creating special channel suites and renaming channels. There is a matrix scan feature which allows the user to see snapshots of all scanned channels and simply click one to select it.
The remote control is comprehensive and large enough to be difficult to lose. The user can select the TV or the video inputs as the source. The video inputs are termed 'VCR'.
For recording purposes, only MPEG-1 and DV are available standard. If the user would like MPEG-2 compression, Pinnacle charges US$5 to 'unlock' that feature. It's a bit of an inconvenience, but the fee is reasonable. Recording necessitates first saving to hard drive and then writing the saved file to CD/DVD for permanent archiving. There is a 'Burn' function in the Gallery viewer, which facilitates burning to disk. To use this feature, activating MPEG-2 is required.
Performance We found the clean application interface on the TV software to be a revelation. The picture quality is excellent. The audio was very good as well, but the PCTV USB2 does not support stereo audio. We were told that stereo audio would have been too much for the USB 2.0 connection. A recent review of a competing product backs this up; the audio was sub-par on the other USB TV product. We would rather have good mono than poor stereo any day.
The TV application starts quickly. Channel changing is pretty snappy on this unit where some other products lagged a bit. While the main application interface lacks a 'last channel' switch, the remote control does have it. Unfortunately, there is no 'sleep' function. Many OEM TV tuners lack this. When we asked Pinnacle about it, they seemed interested in adding this feature in the future. We say 'hurrah!' and wish that all PC TV tuner makers would add it.
The recording feature ('timeshifting') worked very well. Capture from external sources ('VCR') functioned as one would expect. The video preview blacks out when recording at higher resolutions and compression rates - probably due to the limited bandwidth of USB 2.0. All captured video played back cleanly and smoothly- regardless of the compression method selected. The Titan online TV scheduling service is included free. The scheduler application allows for this and manual scheduling of program recording at a later time.
Wrap-up So what do we have here? What we have is the best USB 2.0 TV tuner tested to date. The unit is compact, installs easily, works as one would expect and even exceeds expectations in many aspects of its operation. The Pinnacle PCTV USB2 is highly recommended.
- William DeVercelly, Contributing Editor
Where to buy Pinnacle PCTV USB2?
User Review(s)
"Will not run wit service pack 2" Found out after I bought this that it will not run with service pack2.
The software says every thing including the harware is ok.When i try to run it I get an error message about usb2 not foud.Then it closes the app.
Well are we stuck or is pinnacle going to fix there software? From Frank, May 27, 2005
"Hands OFF!" Nothing but trouble with Software:
- After a couple of minutes, audio and video get out of sync
- freezes sometimes
- NTSC does not work properly, sometimes yes, sometimes no
- VERY POOR tech support : Blame everything on stupid customer, totally irrelevant "tips", not willing to provide debuged software.
From Reto Tischhauser, May 09, 2005
"it stops to respond, poor automatic channel detection" In Moscow, Russia, (SECAM) the product does not automatically detect 3 or 4 out of 18 air channels. The rest have to be manually put into "Channels.xml" and imported (sic!) by means of a special program. Somtimes it's quite qifficult to obtain proper frequency value of some channel so the process may occupy some time. It also stops the system when fine-tuning a channel inside its shell - probability -50%. At last - mpeg-2 encoder feature not available free of charge. Disappointment. From Mikhail, April 28, 2005
"Tricky, but overall it's good" This product was a real pain in the ass to install, but once I got it going, it worked pretty well. I tried hooking my PS2 to it's composite slot, and I was disappointed to learn that it has a slight lag, which is not a big deal when watching tv, but a huge problem for gaming. Anyway. If your XP is a pirated version, you probably should get this, since it requires SP1, which you can't install in you don't have a valid CD-key fro XP. Also, make sure you have a USB 2.0 port, or it won't work. Finally, if you have on-chip USB controllers and install a PCI usb 2.0 card, be sure to disable the on-chip USB controller from the BIOS. I didn't, and the computer would crash as soon as I Pluged in the PCTV. So Like i said, work well, but it can be very very tricky. Good Luck. From JA, March 06, 2005
"It does not work!" Connected the unit to a Dell laptop with a P4 3.2 processor and 512MB of RAM laptop and tried all the troubleshooting steps from the forum (many other users had issues). It simple does not work. The video does not run smoothly but is rather just stills that refresh every 4 seconds. In a word... CRAP! From Steve Long, February 16, 2005
"Bad product, even worse support" I own a top of the line PC: Athlon 64 3500+, Nvidia 6800, WinXP Pro card, etc. etc.
Pinnacle PCTV crashed the WinXP Pro during the install phase and freezes the Windows XP ever since. Both Pinnacle Tech Support and Forums Suport do not read the questions and send irrelevant answers. They also suggested replacing my PC - What a joke! Don't buy it unless you are SURE that you can get reimbursed in full if it does not work for you! Don't even dream on counting on Pinnacle's support. From Al Lawrence, January 31, 2005
"Scam" Keep your bullshit. I will take this unit back for an ATI. $5 for a feature that should have just been included in the cost is what I'm talking about. I don't do online banking or will I use a credit card, so it's your loss as I will be returning my PCTV USB2 for a ATI external unit which does include mpeg2. From Mark, January 23, 2005
"Nice, but could be much better" I do love the product, capturing goes really well. The only negative thing about the set is that you have to activate the MPEG2 encoding and pay 5 EURO for it, using a creditcard, which I don't like at all. I would have paid those 5 euros more for such a useful device, why make it such a hassle pinnacle? The format you can record in is regular VCD so no SVCD without activation. I just consider it a shame that they don't mention this additional fee for using all features. JUST INCLUDE IT IN THE PRICE FOR THE PRODUCT AND DON'T ANNOY YOUR CUSTOMERS WITH THIS FUCKING BULLSHIT! From Kristof, December 04, 2004
"Be sure you can get your money back" Does not work well on my PC. Remote-control crashes Windows XP! Timeshift freezes my PC. Sound and video are not well synchronised.
Would be great if everything worked as promised...
Support from Pinnacle was really bad: they just don't answer mail or phonecalls. From JosW, November 20, 2004
"compatibility issues" If you plan to use this gadget on ATI Mobility Radeon family powered laptops, I would definitely recommend: try before buy! Unless you do that you will end up having another useless thingy in your shelf. On ATI MR based laptops you will get no video, or very slow screen refresh (1 frame per 10-20 sec) and eventually a blue screen. Pinnacle forums are full of complains, and developers have not responded since months. Not even an official acknowledgement stating that they are aware of the issue and trying to do something. It seems, that they want you to buy this thing, even if you cannot use it at all. From fejoe, November 19, 2004
"I love this product" I bought it last two weeks in Thailand for $95.I decided to choose a box instead of PCI as I want to switch using it between my pc and laptop.I think this is very convenience.The software is easy to use. I tried Christ TV software (3rd party software) which has a better picture quality but It has no sound (I couldn't figure out where to set)So, I have to re-iinstall PCTV vision instead.I am really satisfied with the products and software.And will activate MPEG2 in a few days. From Ann Landing, November 09, 2004
"Shocked when i saw the great video quality" Well the install process went well. I was shocked when i saw the quality of the picture and with the quality of recordings the file size of the recordings is on the large side, but i use a 80 gig networked drive. I have the option to burn my recordings to dvd and the quality stays as good. I did have a problem with the sound at first but with a few windows updates solved this problem. A downside to this is the activation key for dvd mpeg2. I felt i had paid enough for the item without having to pay more, but it was only about 3 quidd to activate it. Overall im very impressed and would recommend. From chris lyth, October 19, 2004
"PCTV USB2 - Disappointing" Product installed ok on Toshiba laptop, but application would constantly freeze up. The only time the TV would work without freezing is while recording - not acceptable.
Waited over an hour on hold before Pinnacle support finally answered - another hour working with support of trying this and that and still no solution. I suggest you read throught the Pinnacle support forums on the PCTV products and you'll see a lot of problems and complaint on both the products and support.
I can't recommend Pinnacle video products at this time. Pinnacle appears to have designed and rushed these to market without proper testing and debugging. Too bad to, if the PCTV USB2 worked properly it would be a great product. From Joe Consumer, October 07, 2004
"Excellent." The picture quality is excellent (even full screen), the sound loud and clear, lots of software options. I use in with the laptop, 1.3 Pentium Centrino, Nvidia graphics, with 1024x768 resolution.
Right after the installation, the application refused to run, stating that I do not have USB2, but 1.1 instead. As it happened, my Windows XP did not have SP1 installed. After installing SP1 (and still not having success), I looked at the hardware manager, found unknown USB device, tried to update its driver, and, voila, I got the Enhanced USB in the list.
After that PCTV worked like a charm.
I did not use any USB tuner before and I highly recommend this one. From Yuri Persion, August 05, 2004
"Compact, very good and easy to install" I recently decided to buy the pinnacle pctv usb2 because i didnt have enuogh space in my comp. But i only needed it for watching tv and the occasional recording. Out of the box it was very simple to install. It worked straight out of the box. This thing is real small. All you do is hook up the usb cable to your comp and then hook up your cable. No need for an extra power cord which is nice and no need for an audio cable. After installing drivers and program it was ready to go.
After installing you will have to scan for channels. You can scan from cable or antenna. Also you can choose from ntsc, pal, and other variations of pal. Which should be nice for people that travel around the world. The picture quality is very good by my standards but this is my first tv card so i have nothing to compare it by. The optimal viewing size i have figured out was 768 x 576. Which is real nice but it takes up alot of your desktop space so i shrink it down to around 480 x 240. It has matrix surfing which is a plus. Also switching channels is very fast.
The capture mode allows you to capture using mpeg1, mpeg 2 and dv quality. One thing i didnt like was that mpeg2 is not activated on the unit. You have to actvate it by buying an activation key. It is only $5.00 usd. Not much money but they could of added this to the price of the unit and would be less of a hassle. If you dont have mpeg2 you can only record in mpeg1 at 352 x 240 or dv at 720 x 480. I recorded a one hour show at mpeg 1 at 352 x 240 and the size of the file was almost 700 mb but i decided to activate mpeg 2 in order to record at something bigger than 352 x 240. Havent tried it yet. If you do record in dv your picture display will be jerky at times while it is recording and the file sizes are huge. This jerkiness is not present in the recording though. It seems that the usb 2.0 is being used to the max while recording dv and affects your display.
If you enable timeshifting your picture quality will decrease by half. I guess because it is recording and displaying video at the same time. This is a feature i have no need for so i dont use it. Sorry put i cant comment on the capture by composite and s video because this is not needed by me.
For the laptop user or the person not wanting to open their computer i highly recommend this product. It does everything it says straight out of the box and it is a no-hassle system. Having support for ntsc and pal is another huge plus. And the remote it comes with is a big plus. You can do everything from the remote which is very nice. The only bad thing would be that the mpeg2 not being activated from the factory. From FanatiK, July 03, 2004
We're currently upgrading our user review system; so we won't be accepting new reviews for now. PCTV USB2 Specs
Extras Lost a USB cable? Get a replacement USB cable.
Running out of USB ports? Get an extra USB hub.
You may need a new USB card to achieve Hi-Speed USB speeds.
Confirm with our USB 2.0 FAQ if you have Hi-Speed USB on your PC.
