Rating: 
Summary: High-Price for an Unreliable Product
Review: Crashes unrecoverably during approximately 40% of the attempts to record two hour movies. This happens on both my XP and ME systems. Pinnacle has been unable to fix this, and their bulletin board confirms that this is a common problem. Good features available when it works.
Rating: 
Summary: the features sound great don't they?
Review: for about a year and a half, and all of the sudden, it just stopped working...and caused all kinds of problems...I did everything I could to get it up and running, and nothing...The hardware simply broke. That's the only explanation for this.
If you want something you can enjoy and not have constant problems with...and if you want something that will at least last 2 years, find something else...and make sure it isn't a Pinnacle product...save yourself while you still can. "Tech Support" is non-existent. I have called and NOT ONCE have I actually spoken to a real person...not to mention, it's not Toll Free, and hold times are AT LEAST an hour. Find something else, i'm sure there are better products on the market...i'm looking as I write this.
Rating:
Summary: Buyer Beware
Review: God help the fool that buys PCTV Deluxe! No support and no updated drivers. Pinnacle has moved on to something else. I lost money on this garbage. I would give it a zero star if that option existed.
Rating:
Summary: Useless Garbage
Review: I am very disappointed with this product. I was upgrading my video capture to include the PVR option, so I purchased this product. Big mistake. The remote control didn't seem to work at all, no matter how close I sat to the unit. It seemed to take forever to switch between channels. I am not one to surf, but I was still frustrated. After prolonged use, the box seemed to overheat, causing it to mysteriously change channels, mute the volume, or perform other strange behavior. The software was user friendly, but that is little consolation for a poor piece of hardware. I unplugged it & threw it away, and have since bought an internal card by another manufacturer. Stay away from this one.
Rating:
Summary: Useless Garbage
Review: I am very disappointed with this product. I was upgrading my video capture to include the PVR option, so I purchased this product. Big mistake. The remote control didn't seem to work at all, no matter how close I sat to the unit. It seemed to take forever to switch between channels. I am not one to surf, but I was still frustrated. After prolonged use, the box seemed to overheat, causing it to mysteriously change channels, mute the volume, or perform other strange behavior. The software was user friendly, but that is little consolation for a poor piece of hardware. I unplugged it & threw it away, and have since bought an internal card by another manufacturer. Stay away from this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Pinnacle PCTV and Windows XP
Review: I attempted to use the Pinnacle PCTV Deluxe unit with my new IBM NetVista desktop which runs on Windows XP Pro and is equipped with an Adaptec USB 2.0 card. The software seemed to load OK but the unit wouldn't work. Device Manager marked this device with a yellow exclamation point and told me the drivers wouldn't load properly. A trip to Pinnacle's downloads web site found the software but no patches or driver updates for this device. I uninstalled the software that came with the device and loaded the software from the web site with identical results.Because of problems dealing with Pinnacle, I returned the unit through Amazon's fantastic return policy and the replacement unit started up instantly without reinstalling the software. I'm now getting great reception, although with occasional freeze frames from unknown sources that usually clear themselves. Since this is a new product, I'm going to watch for future software upgrades and will enjoy using the PCTV in the meantime.
Rating:
Summary: A summer of TV on my PC
Review: I bought this product in March. I was quite happy with the ease of instalation and the quality of the TV picture on my monitor. However, now it is November and the tuner seems to have completely crapped out. I went to the Pinnacle web site, and I found out the guarantee is 30 days and the problem with total failure at 6 months or so is pretty common. I was directed to an on line b-board where there were a number of postings of buyers whose experience was exactly like mine. There seems to be no recourse or fix other than replacement at my cost.
Rating:
Summary: A summer of TV on my PC
Review: I bought this product in March. I was quite happy with the ease of instalation and the quality of the TV picture on my monitor. However, now it is November and the tuner seems to have completely crapped out. I went to the Pinnacle web site, and I found out the guarantee is 30 days and the problem with total failure at 6 months or so is pretty common. I was directed to an on line b-board where there were a number of postings of buyers whose experience was exactly like mine. There seems to be no recourse or fix other than replacement at my cost.
Rating:
Summary: Software could use some QA
Review: I bought this product wanting to watch TV on my PC. I purchased the USB version since I don't have any PCI slots left on my Dell 8200 running XP. Setup was easy, however the software is quite buggy. Everytime I would close the PCTV application, I would get the "Windows has encountered an error" popup box. Also, I purchased a DVD burner and once I installed the DVD burner software my PCTV software wouldn't run. So I had to reinstall the PCTV software to get it to work. After about 6 days, the PCTV software stopped running again. I checked Pinnacle's website for updated software, however they had an older version on their website than what actually shipped with the product. After all this, I decided to return it, and just go by a small TV to put by my computer.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent quality - great features and easy installation
Review: I got my PCTV Deluxe a few days back. The installation on Windows XP could'nt be easier. Just plugged power and cable tv wire into pctv deluxe. Started installation cd. It asks to connect the usb wire to pctv deluxe. Did that. installation was perfect and smooth. I have dell 8200 inspiron.
started the application. it scanned all channels automatically. image quality while viewing tv is so excellent! i find no drop in quality at all. infact it is better quality than viewing on tv because of enhancements that software can produce rather than tv (pause, resume, instant play back etc.).
The quality of the picture which is the main thing is very superb. The application looks well designed and quiet stable. The remote control on the other hand is not extremely reliable. the delay in channel switching is not too much (about a second. same goes for your tv too).
over all i am highly impressed with this hardware and would recommend it. Plus it is external, which means you can move it to a different computer very easily when ever you want or to your friends house to record a program that you dont receive on your computer!
it is extremely easy to use. very carefully designed. They even cared about the looks.
Overall it is a high quality product and well designed. Provides excellent tv an your pc. No need for those bulky idiot boxes in your small office or your dorm rooms! watching tv on pc is so much fun!
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