Pinnacle PCTV HD Stick Review

Ratings: Ease of Use, Performance: 24/25, Look & Feel: 23/25, Features 23/25, How much I enjoy 23/25
Total: 93/100

The Pinnacle PCTV HD Stick comes from Pinnacle, the proven leaders in video editing, capture and now television on your PC. The PCTV HD Stick brings television to your computer with the high definition of the most current digital channels and the ability to record your favorite shows right on that computer.

The PCTV HD Stick comes with the PCTV HD Stick, USB extension cable, PCTV Center Pro and drivers on CD, Pinnacle Studio QuickStart CD and an antenna with RF cable end. The drivers and the PCTV TVCenter Pro for viewing your TV on the computer are on one CD as well as the drivers for setting up your PCTV HD with Windows Media Center Edition.

Installing and setting up the PCTV HD Stick is very simple and only takes a few minutes, with most of this being the scan for channels. The small antenna that comes with the PCTV Stick is okay at picking up signals but it will be a hit and miss affair. The system is designed to use any TV antenna but just like regular television reception you get better TV with a larger antenna.

Once installed and running the TVCenter Pro works very well picking up not only regular analog signals but HD TV as well. I get the same channels of HD TV with the PCTV HD Stick as I do on my television and with the WINTV card from Hauppauge. The PCTV HD Stick works equally as well with Windows Media Center Edition on Windows XP and Vista.

You can watch television using the Pinnacle TVCenter Pro or on your previously installed Windows Media Center Edition. The Pinnacle TVCenter Pro works pretty well but the system works very well and integrates smoothly into Media Center. Once the TVCenter Pro is installed watching TV is a matter of clicking on the TVCenter Pro icon and letting the show come up. Digital channels will take a few seconds for reception to steady down as it is getting information several seconds in advance of your current screen frames.