Rating: 
Summary: Pinnacle Systems customer service
Review: I have tried this product and found it to be deficient. Could not get it to operate properly within my system. I arranged for a return to Pinnacle Systems and it disappeared into a "black hole", never to return. Repeated attempts to get some response from Pinnacle has not helped. Pretty disgusted with the company and their policies.
Rating:
Summary: Pinnacle Systems customer service
Review: I have tried this product and found it to be deficient. Could not get it to operate properly within my system. I arranged for a return to Pinnacle Systems and it disappeared into a "black hole", never to return. Repeated attempts to get some response from Pinnacle has not helped. Pretty disgusted with the company and their policies.
Rating: 
Summary: Does the job. Not for novices.
Review: I recently purchased the Pinnacle PCTV Deluxe because:
#1 I wanted to capture TV to hard drive so that I could permanently record my favorite TV shows and sports events.
#2 I did not have the PCI expansion slots for a PCI based TV tuner/capture card but I did have USB2.0 which the PCTV Deluxe is based off of.
#3 I was happy with another Pinnacle product I owned so I felt they were a solid company to patronize.Similar to the Pinnacle DV500 Plus which I own/use for video editing, this hardware took a little bit of trial and error to get working properly. If you are uncomfortable with anything beyond attaching the device, loading the setup disc and clicking on "Install", I would avoid this product in its current state. I am an IT technician and it took me a wee bit of tweaking to get it working the way I felt it should. However, it now appears that the PCTV is doing it job fairly well. The TV signal is coming in properly and the video signal is able to output to my TV through my video card. The video that I capture is clean and very satisfactory to me. All of the functions claimed on the box are working, but not without hiccups every now and then. Occasionally, the TV Viewing and recording program will crash, therefore missing the programs that I set it to record while I was away. Sometimes, and I do not know the exact cause, the video being recorded will become un-synced with the audio portion, creating a delay between the video and audio portion of the capture. I noticed that if I stop the recording (at a commercial break for example) and start another capture from that point, the problem disappears. My belief is that it is another program or windows itself using the hard drive or CPU, creating an interruption in the signal, un-syncing the capture. Whatever the cause, I am not experiencing the insufferable sync problems that other users have reported. There have been many complaints posted concerning the remote included with the PCTV Deluxe. I have had NO problems with the range or responsiveness of the remote. I'll admit that the majority of the time I use the remote from a distance of about 1.5 feet but I've tested also it from across the room (10') without any problems. Also, there is a two second delay between what is being shown on the cable signal (for example if you are watching on a TV straight from the cable), and the signal shown through the Pinnacle PCTV Deluxe. I do not understand why this is such a big gripe with some reviewers. It is beneficial to me because it allows me to manually record much more accurately by viewing what comes on the TV first then clicking record right before the commercial ends/program starts. Currently, the PCTV Deluxe does NOT include software for automatic TV program recording (which was originally promised in Pinnacle's press release concerning this product), you must manually schedule all programs desired. According to Pinnacle's tech support, whom I contacted, an update should be released soon for free for their customers (Titan TV, which is used for automatic program scheduling). In conclusion, I would have to say that I am personally satisfied with the product at its initial release (enough so that I am not going to return the product, even with the liberal return policy of my vendor). However, I feel that the product was hastily released and not ready for the technically faint-of-heart. Based on hearsay, I am under the impression that the PCI based TV tuner/capture cards are more stable and reliable (I assume due to the fact they have been out for a lot longer than USB based TV capture devices). If you have a slot available in your computer for a PCI card, research PCI based solutions first. If nothing in that department suits you, and you feel ready to possibly handle a weekend of troubleshooting, consider the PCTV Deluxe. Note. I am running the PCTV Deluxe on an AMD Athlon 1400MHz, 512MB DDR, ATI Radeon 7500, SCSI hard drive for operating system and programs, capturing to 80GB IDE Raid drive (two 40GB hard drives in RAID0) According to Pinnacle's web site, the processor is actually below the specs for capturing DVD quality rates, but it appears to be able to handle the task.
Rating:
Summary: Bad product, even for Pinnacle
Review: I've had my share of bad products from Pinnacle, including compatibility problems and editing nightmares with Studio 8, and lack of support for their Express program. I have a P4/2.4Ghz/1GB RAM system, with half a terabyte of drive space on 7200 RPM drives. My USB 2.0 card is loaded properly. Connecting this product is easy, just install the software and hook it up. Once I got it programmed to the Cable TV feed, I noticed there was a several second delay between what was on the real TV and what's on my computer screen. I assumed it was something with the TV on Demand function, but I found there's no way to simply turn it off. Also, the video is jerky and drops a second's worth of frames several times per minute. The T-Rex multimedia converter left my VOB files out of synch by up to seven seconds at points. I converted from 8000 Mb/s DVD quality to AVI, then again the previous video to 4000 Mb/s DVD MPEG-2. Both times resulted in a massive synchronization problem. I'm going back to my ATI A-I-W.
Rating:
Summary: Updated PCTV Deluxe Is Greatly Improved
Review: In late 2002, the potential of the PCTV Deluxe was great, but it was just too buggy so I waited before I bought it. As of February 2003, version 1.5 is out and nearly all the bugs are gone. I bought it to use on my XP computer, plugged it up & installed according to the directions that came with it, and everything worked great without needing any tweaking. The picture quality is good. Easy to install. It's been fun so far. I've recorded shows that I wanted to watch, then delete them when finished without having to worry about video tapes or recording over another show I wanted to keep. I have also recorded shows via PCTV Deluxe that I want to save to a VCD and the quality has been pretty good. I have also converted a vcr tape to a DVD and the quality was great. It looks like the new version 1.5 software has really cleared up a lot of problems other users have reported. Check the date of their review if their comments cause you concerns. At one point their comments were valid and relevant, but most of those problems are now corrected that were mentioned in reviews posted before the Jan/Feb 2003 timeframe. I just hope I can easily get future versions of the software if Pinnacle continues on to version 2 or higher. The Titan TV website lists PCTV Deluxe as one of the recorders it is working with for its automatic recording function. I have not tried it yet, but if automatic recording is not yet functional, it should be available soon. PCTV Deluxe is turning out to be a really good product.
Rating:
Summary: stay away...
Review: Install is buggy, you will have to manually edit registry, manually copy some files into the right place because the install does not. Performance is poor, video quality is good when it works. This is a version 1 product. Maybe in a year or so when pinnacle figures out how to get the install to work and debugs their drivers. Until then stay away...
Rating:
Summary: Good potential, but not recommended.
Review: Installation is straight forward and the unit has a very nice and compact design. The software PCTV vision software that's included require some serious rework; it tends to cause system to hang on Windows XP and the video freezes very often. On some system the remote controll become non-responsive and the screen will turn blank, even when there's signal from the cable. When switching channels sometimes the audio channel will be stuck in the previous channel. I found the software works better in Windows 2000 with P4. The PCTV unit does not work with any third party software such as Vegas video or PowerVCR. The bundled CD has a trial version of Studio 8 from Pinnacle, and you can't even use Studio 8 to capture video from PCTV Deluxe. The quality of video when viewing TV shows is nice and the mpeg encoder did a pretty good job except that you all encoded video are interlaced, you will have to deinterlace them yourself. This unit come with both S-video and Composite video input but quality is poor. I think this product has great potential, but unless Pinnacle fix up it's software and driver, I don't recommend wasting money on this product.
Rating:
Summary: Will not work with XP service pack 2
Review: It worked fine for a while and when I uploaded SP-2 it stopped. It doesn't say this on their website but the tech I got on the phone after 40 minutes said "uhhh Yeah, Microsoft really doesn't like us" I'm not sure what that means but there isn't a fix for this yet (7 Dec 04)
Rating:
Summary: Buyer Beware !!!!
Review: My system stopped working completely after 9 months. Pinnacle support does not offer toll free number and wait times are very long. Tried using their web support, but they did did not provide a solution to my problem and refused to acknowledge my request for information on returning (it was still under warranty). Very expensive paper weight!
Rating:
Summary: Works great as long as you have a higher end system
Review: The PCTV Deluxe is a combo tv tuner and video capture device.
Installs easily via USB port. Accepts input via cable, composite or s-video ports. Has LED indicators on front showing which of these ports is active. The included "Vision" software allows you to watch live tv, time-shifted tv (think tivo) where you can pause but it continues recording and you can resume watching without missing a thing. You can also schedule shows to be recorded and then watch them when you want. Overall, it works very well for me. I would recommend that people with older systems without USB 2.0 ports go with a dedicated card instead of this.
| 
