Reviewed by Harry Eaton

Bring digital HDTV with full DVR functionality to your laptop with the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick.  Enjoy all of your favorite shows in high quality HD anytime and anywhere.  Digital HDTV is crystal clear not fuzzy like some analog TV stations can be.  You will also be able to watch digital only chanels that you never knew existed.

Capable of handling NTSC (Analog or Standard Definition TV) and ATSC (Standard and High Definition Digital TV) with resolutions up to 1080i, the Pro Stick (a little larger than a standard USB key) packs quite alot into a tiny package.

At one end of the stick is a USB connector; At the other is a standard coaxial cable connector used to hook up the antenna.  You can also connect a regular cable TV line and just use the Pro Stick as a personal video recorder.

Picture quality on the PCTV HD Pro Stick is great.  If you have a decent signal you have a perfect picture.  If you have a low signal you get nothing at all.

Recieving HD TV signals will be the problem for alot of people, depending on location and interference from nearby buildings or steel walls.  You may have trouble recieving HDTV outside of major metropolitan regions. Consult AntennaWeb.org for station availability.

Watching TV on the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro stick is a dream, since Pinnacle Media Center de-interlaces both live and recorded video by default for a smooth picture.  Sit back and relax with full remote control access.

Want to be able to record live HDTV on your computer.  Remove the commercials from your favorite programs or watch your favorite shows while working. Pinnacle PCTV Pro Stick is the answer.

In less than an hour you can be watching HDTV on your computer. All you need is an available USB 2.0 port to plug the PCTV Pro stick in. Load the software and search for available TV stations. An 8" telescoping antenna (expandable to about 2 feet) is included, although to get better reception a cable connection or rooftop antenna may be needed.

PCTV HD Pro allows you to record and time shift your favorite shows so you never miss an episode.  You will never miss an exciting part of a show with the ability to pause, rewind and replay.  There is a two week programming guide so you know when the shows will be on to set up recording well in advance.  Pinnacle supplies the guide for the first year, its $30 a year after that. You can even record your favorite shows directly to DVD for watching at a later time.

Recording formats include MPEG for DVD and VCD, DivX, native (for digital), and MP4 with profiles for the iPod and PSP.  Each has their own set of quality levels.  Recorded shows can be transcoded on the fly straight to your format of choice, although high definioion broadcasts will most likely need to be recorded in native format due to the tremendous processing load imposed by HDTV.

Recording natively eats up alot of disk space, anywhere from 2.6 GB to 5 GB per hour depending on the resolution.  Recording to DivX Home theater uses 1.8 GB per hour, while DivX portable uses only 421 MB per hour. Though not perfect quality, its "good enough" for daily recordings since it looks somewhat better than streaming video, and you can't complain about the file size.

PCTV HD Pro Stick works on both desktop and laptop computers and is compatible with Windows XP and Vista.  To keep the PCTV HD Pro Sticks small form factor, save power and lessen costs, all of the encoding is done by your computers CPU. Therefore, it may be difficult for older computers to transcode outside of native format on the fly, or even decode HDTV.

Pinnacle recommends a minimum system requirement of a Pentium 4 @2.4 GHz or Pentium M @1.3 GHz with 512 MB of Ram, and suggests using a dual-core processor with 1GB of Ram for optimal performance.

PCTV HD Pro Stick includes an adapter so that you can also bring in your own footage from an analog camcorder, VCR, DVD player or other device.  You also get Pinnacle Studio Version 10 to be able to edit your footage like a pro with effects and transitions. When your all done editing the included software allows you to burn your video to DVD or CD.

While Pinnacle Media Center may have some quirks and a poor programming guide. The bundled antenna did a good job of picking up signals, video was amazing and recorded content to DivX, PSP, and iPod was nothing short of excellent. If your planning on recording content, have plenty of hard drive space.

Package Includes:

PCTV HD Pro Stick
  Remote control and 2 AAA batteries
  Magnetic Omni-directional antenna
  Breakout cable for S-Video, Composite,and 3.5 mm audio
  USB extension cable
  Pinnacle Media Center CD
  Pinnacle Studio Quick start v. 10.5 CD
  Quick start guide

Specifications:

Encoding method: Software
  Video Capture Resolution: 1080i, 720p, 480p/i
  TV Standards: ATSC, NTSC
  Native Video Capture Format: MPEG-2
  Video input(s): Coaxial, S-Video, Composite
  Audio input(s): Surround, Stereo
  Video output(s): None
  Software: Pinnacle Media Center, Pinnacle Studio
  Power Source: USB Bus-powered

Suggested Retail $ 99.95

Pinnacle Systems Inc.
  280 North Bernardo Ave
  Mountain View, Ca. USA. 94043
  Telephone (650) 526-1600

Website: http://www.pinnaclesys.com