Takes some getting used to and patience required, but performs its job (eventually)
Written: Dec 12 '03 (Updated Dec 13 '03)
Product Rating:
Pros: Cable/Antenna, S-Video/Composite Video imputs, scheduler, multiple record methods, fairly good quality record.
Cons: Bad installation, no uninstallation, random quirks, no editing features
The Bottom Line: Not for novice users, not a total-solution for advanced users (since no editing software included) I would recommend it if you have the patience to get through the install.
sidraw1's Full Review: Pinnacle PCTV™ Deluxe (210100231) Video Capture
This isn't an easy review to write as I have extremely mixed feelings about this unit. It doesn't appear that many people here are impressed with the performance of the PCTV Deluxe model and, at the beginning, I wasn't either. You love it or you hate it, and sometimes these emotions follow each other from minute to minute. Let me give you a rundown of my experiences and what I found about the product.
Test Platform Specs:
Dell Inspiron 8200 Laptop
Windows XP Pro
1.6/1.2 Ghz Mobile Pentium 4
256 mb memory
40 gb harddrive (in a rather fragmented state)
USB 1.1
NVIDIA 4x AGP with 32mb DRAM
Minimum/Recommended Requirements:
Windows ME, 2000, or XP (NT 4, 95 and 98 are not supported)
700 MHz Pentium III or Celeron. 1 GHz recommended
CD-ROM for installation. CD-RW or DVD +/- RW for burning
128 mb Memory. 256 mb recommended
Direct X 8.1 compatible graphics board. AGP with MPEG-1 or 2 support recommended
In the Box:
PCTV Unit (7" x 5 3/8" x 1 1/4" box)
AC Power Cord and Power Converter Brick
USB Cable
Remote Control
2AA Batteries for Remote Control
Installation CD
Manual
Pre-Installation:
I had purchased this as part of a package ($70 for the PCTV) and hadn't looked at the reviews here ahead of time. I did look at them after the unit had came in and got that "uh oh" feeling.
I opened the box and laid everything out, then familiarized myself with the setup routine. I connected most of the cables except for the USB and the power since it appears that those are to be connected during the installation process. I was expecting a few glitches in the operation after installation, or in the testing since the particular laptop I was installing on had only USB 1.1
Installation (and Uninstallation and Reinstallation etc):
Installation proceeded well until 80-81% complete. At a point in the installation, you are told to plug the unit in and connect the USB. Windows is supposed to detect it and install drivers. And it did. I think. After it chugged along and got to the 80%, a message appeared saying that it was necessary to restart after the installation of the drivers and gave me the choice. I figured the software knew what it was doing and said to go ahead, expecting installation to continue upon reboot as happens with other programs occasionally.
Hindsight being 20/20, I think what may have happened is that the drivers had not fully installed until the 80% point was reached and both were installing at the same time. Probably not good!
After telling it to go ahead and restart, it continued on and installed TRex and then finally wanted to do a reboot, which I was happy to let it.
The reboot didn't happen and so began the fun. The setup window would not close and I ended up having to kill it in task manager and reboot the machine manually. After the reboot, (and telling it that I would register later; hey, I'm not registering something that isn't even working yet) it started the system tests and failed saying the software was corrupt and drivers were missing. It recommended uninstalling the software and reloading.
Uninstalling this software is not easy and I have not accomplished it yet. I was able to remove TRex through the control panel easily enough, but the PCTV verified that I wanted to remove it and proceeded to INSTALL itself again, or at least go through the motions. I also tried to uninstall through the Start-Programs-Pinnacle-Uninstall Pinnacle method and that, too, tried to reinstall.
After a few tries I put the CD back in and tried the install. It recognized that it was there already and gave me the choice of Modify, Repair or Remove. Ah, REMOVE. Nope, it went through the installation process again. Repair? I don't think so, it still thinks I just want to install. Well, let's install it on top of itself and see what happens. It brought up a list of components to install and I checked all of them except Adobe Reader (already have that) and some trial software. Then set it installing again and it went much better.
I rebooted again. (At this point I have lost track of how many times) I told it (again) that I would register it later and continued with the system test and it went fine, even with USB 1.1
Setup and Configuration:
Now it was time to let it see how many channels it could find. You have the option of looking for Cable or Antenna channels and it did alright on the Antenna, getting 7 of 8 of that I receive here. The one that it missed is pretty grainy and very bad reception, so I'm going to cut it some slack for missing that one. The reception is such that it would be hard to watch anyway.
Once you have the channels set, you can name them to their station and fine tune the reception and also the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, and Sharpness. Other options are the NTSC or PAL choice and also country. Strangely enough, when you switch to a country that has PAL, that choice doesn't automatically update.
The picture display was pretty darn good and the sound as well. I had no problems at all with dropped frames when simply viewing a program. The capture signal can come either from antenna/cable, S-Video, or composite video.
Recording from Non-Antenna/Cable Input:
I've had pretty bad luck with video capture devices in the past. Another one that I have never seems to be able to capture more than 30 or so minutes of high quality VHS input. (In the old days my Snappy and Dazzle would do alright, but the picture size wasn't impressive)
The PCTV, however, faithfully captured an hour of DVD quality recording. (720x480 resolution, 6Mb/s bit rate) I did notice on my first attempt that after about 40 minutes it was hanging just slightly and 'sticking'. I am attributing this to several factors. The first is that my hard drive was pretty fragmented. Second, this particular machine has a USB 1.1 interface. And, third, I was viewing the video at the same time in a rather large video window.
Timer Recording of TV Programs:
My first test of timer recording of broadcast TV was mixed. The test was to record four programs over night starting at 10:30pm. The first three were sequential and on the same channel, going from 10:30pm to 12:00am. The final one came on at 1:05am and ran until 1:35am. I launched the Scheduler and was able to set the beginning and end times of each and even name what the program would be so I would distinct files later on.
I noticed that the Scheduler allowed you to set the time to the second which is an improvement over my old VCR. I later found out, however, that this is misleading and the user should set to the nearest minute.
Like most VCRs, you can do a daily, weekly, or one-time record. I do not see a way to do a M-F type of schedule to only record that timeslot on weekdays. A drawback.
I decided that, even though the first three programs ran sequentially on the same channel, I wanted a separate file for each one. Since I could set the record time to the seconds, I set my viewing schedule as follows:
Drew Carey Channel 10 10:28:00pm to 10:59:02pm
Seinfeld Channel 10 10:59:45pm to 11:29:02pm
Frasier Channel 10 11:29:45pm to 12:00:00am
3rd Rock Channel 08 01:03:00am to 01:37:00am
I double checked the times and channels and was pretty pleased with being able to set a schedule of recording like this.
Then I turned the volume all the way down on my laptop and removed myself from the experiment. PCTV runs in the background so it will try to kick in and record when the set time comes around. If the unit is not plugged into the USB, a Hardware Initialization error will come up.
At 10:30pm I went back into the room and checked the laptop. Sure enough, a file was being created with the contents of Channel 10.
I knew exactly when the program ended and the first recording stopped even though I was in another room. As soon as recording stopped, the laptop speakers came on FULL volume, even though I had them turned off. See Tips below for remedy.
I went out to check the status and watch the record start again for the next program. It didn't. I finally got it started by going into scheduler a few times and exiting. It then kicked in recording, possibly thinking that I had set up a new schedule? It went on recording and stopped when it should at the end, the phone plug I inserted keeping it from blaring across the room. The next program would not start and I had to do the same trick to get it to record. I'm not sure exactly what that trick is a combination of, but it has something to do with going into the scheduler and waking it up.
I wasn't going to stay up any later and if it didn't record the one at 1:03am, fine. By this time I had reasoned that the issue was the closeness of the start and stop times of the second two programs.
In the morning I went out to check the Gallery of movies that I had, and it did indeed record 3rd Rock, confirming my suspicion about proximity of stop and start times.
The second night I was going to shift the times a little and noticed when I went back into the scheduler, that the seconds had been dropped. Although seconds are shown, they are not used! My second test was:
Drew Carey Channel 10 10:28:00pm to 10:58:00pm
Seinfeld Channel 10 10:59:00pm to 11:28:00pm
Frasier Channel 10 11:29:00pm to 12:00:00am
3rd Rock Channel 08 01:03:00am to 01:37:00am
I then retired for the night and didn't check until morning. I had four files, just as I should, so the seconds issue is a problem. It wasn't so much the closeness of the start and stop as that the time was rounded so that one stopped at xx:29 and the other started at xx:29 which it couldn't handle.
Since the names of the files created were the same as those last night, it very helpfully appended a sequence number which I like.
Creating Viewable Media:
When determining the type of capture, you have the VCD, SVCD, Longplay DVD, and DVD options (as well as Custom). I recorded two programs in VCD mode and when they were finished, I clicked Burn in the gallery. You can only Burn to the type of configuration that you recorded in, so I chose a VCD and dragged the files into the queue. It told me how much space and gave me a progress bar. Then I burned them.
Do not be concerned if the mouse freezes during this operation. Control of the pointer should be returned to you when the process is finished. I don't like that feature, but at least it didn't crash out on me. The VCD I created played back in Windows Media Player just fine.
Pros:
Cable/Antenna input as well as S-Video and Composite Video.
Scheduler easy to operate (once you figure out the spacing between programs trick)
Number of output settings for bit rate and display resolution. VCD, SVCD, Longplay DVD, DVD presets as well as Custom which allows you to define the parameters.
Fairly good quality record.
Cons:
Installation should be a lot easier.
Uninstallation should be possible without having to dive into the registry. I think one other person mentioned this and it appears that may be the only way to accomplish it. Maybe if a System Restore point were created before installing.
No pass through to send signal to a TV for parallel viewing at the same time. Even my old Dazzle had this capability.
Speaker volume kicked up to full when recording is finished.
No editing software...record and burn only. If you intend to transfer home videos, etc, I recommend getting either the Pinnacle Studio, or something like MediaStudio Pro.
It does not appear that you can use the Viewer to view created files unless the hardware is plugged in. The MPEGS will play back in Windows Media Player, but with an annoying green collar unless the VCD method is chosen.
Closing PCTV doesn't always 'close' it and you sometimes have to do a little extra at machine shutdown time because it still is resident. Usually a little gray-blue window pops up and asks if you really want to close out. Once you confirm that you do, you can shutdown.
Occasionally goes into LONG stutters that can be fixed by unplugging the USB and recycling power.
Tips and Tricks:
Partway through installation the process stops and tells you to connect the USB cable and power up the unit. Do this and pay particular attention to the Windows messages and allow the Windows driver installation to finish completely before continuing the install.
Stick an earphone plug into the jack on your Computer (earphone not necessary, just one that converts from, say, a 1/4" to a 1/8" plug and doesn't go to a speaker)
Make the view window small when recording; this takes up less system resources for displaying.
Unless the computer has a very fast processor and a lot of memory, try not to use any applications on it while recording is taking place. This consumes resources and may cause the recording to skip or hang or drop frames.
When using the timer for recording, make sure that programs do not stop and start during the same minute.
If the Display seems to stop and only jump frames and have brief audio every 20-30 seconds, unplug the USB cable and cycle power on the unit, then plug the USB back in. This has only happened once, but it is quirky.
Recommendations:
I do not know if I would recommend this to a novice user. I like a lot of the features it has once it is successfully installed, though I'm not sure everyone would get to that stage. I seemed to have a lot less trouble installing this than others here, but I ran into some of my own problems, nevertheless. Once a person gets past the installation, I think he will be a bit more satisfied with the product. There are some things I don't like that I've listed in the Cons, but for the price I ended up paying for it. I'm happy with what I got and what I can do with it.
Pinnacle PCTV turns your PC into a TV and a digital video recorder for a new way of recording your favorite shows. Instead of using traditional VHS or...More at eBay
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