Rating: 
Summary: Plug & play
Review: I tested the card an evening with two objectifs :- Capture a video from a JVC DV camera & burn it on a CD (*.AVI & *.MPG both where ok). - Connect it to the television network, all the chanels where quickly scanned & coded. The main difficulty was the sound from the TV network, it seems that the solution was to connect the PCTV card to the sound card with the provided card. The test has been archived by my 14th old son.
Rating: 
Summary: Great product
Review: If you're looking for something that can digitize video onto your computer, this is definetly the product for you. Not to mention the added bonus of being able to watch TV on your PC. The TV Tuner works great; just like an ordinary TV. Just plug in a cable cord and you're ready to go. The picture quality is great, and you can view in a window of any size, or make it full screen. It comes with a program that lets you add all sorts of nifty features to your own videos, like titles, background music, and you can edit the scenes in any order. Installation is reasonably easy, even for a 15 year old like me, who gets no help from his computer illiterate parents. This product is worth double the price advertised.
Rating: 
Summary: Hmmm...
Review: Delivery was quick and it holds some promise. It will be nice once I work out a bug or two. I can't get the tv tuner working w/o locking up the system w/ a S3 Verge 2M graphic card. I'm hoping a video memory upgrade will help.
Rating: 
Summary: software is terrible - harware only ok
Review: The included software is amateurish, poorly documented and buggy. Installation is difficult. The most common function, TV viewing, is barely supported and has poor channel controls and no preview pane. Other TV tuner cards include a remote control. Buy one of these for just a few dollars more.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Way To See TV On The Desktop!
Review: I checked out many different TV Tuner cards before I bought this one. Many would only work with certain hardware or was not what I was looking for in a tuner card. This card was very easy for me to install and get up and running. You plug in your antenna/cable connection and a cable to the sound board and you're ready to go.The setup manual gives little information but luckily wasn't needed in my case. I installed it under Windows 98 with no problems. Once I installed the card and powered up the computer, Windows recognized new hardware and prompted me for the install CD. It installed the needed software drivers and continued to install the various accessory software on its own. My only negative review of this card would be its limited driver under Windows NT. It is limited to a small window on the desktop and would not work at all under Windows 2000 Beta-3 ( An NT based architechure) . I hope that Pinnacle has the forethought to include a driver for the upcoming final release of this O/S. The price for this card was very enticing. $89.95 with a $20.00 rebate is hard to beat for a tuner card of this caliber. I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to see TV on the desktop.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of Problems w/XP
Review: I've not been happy with my PCTV at all. The biggest problem is the driver and capture software call "PCTV Vision" provided with the device. The software seems designed by some armature programmer without much experience developing real Windows compliant applications. A couple of examples: (1) The open and save file dialogs do not use the standard Windows interface, (2) The application window color is fixed light blue and disregards your desktop color settings, (3) There are no HELP or ABOUT buttons, etc. In addition to these cosmetic problems, the software has deeper and more troublesome bugs that are difficult to work around. Version 5.1 of "PCTV Vision" was not even certified for Windows XP. Pinnacle claims their latest 5.5 version is both certified and improved, but I noticed absolutely no difference. I've never been able to burn a CD using PCTV Vision, even though my CDR/W works perfectly with all my other applications. The Pinnacle software relies on Microsoft DirectX for multimedia operations. However, DirectX reports a number of errors (such as improper opening and closing of multimedia objects) whenever PCTV Vision is run. The PCTV driver also doesn't play well with other applications. When I've tried to access the PCTV capture card from another program, such as Adobe Premier or ULEAD MovieFactory, the driver bombs and reports an error. While I have been able to do basic recording using PCTV, I always keep wishing I'd bought a capture card and software that was more professionally designed. SPECIAL NOTE FOR PAL FORMAT USERS: The PCTV tuner is fixed for NTSC video format on the USA model and PAL video format for the European model. I found the advertising on the box very misleading as it claimed it worked with both NTSC and PAL, but this only applies to the composite input and not the TV tuner itself. I receive both PAL and NTSC signals, but am unable to use my USA version PCTV to record any of the European channels. If you're working with mixed format signals like me then be sure to check that capture card tuner you buy can process them (check the manual before buying if possible). BOTTOM LINE: The PCTV capture card works, but you might be happier with a card from another company.
Rating:
Summary: Surprised it works as advertised!
Review: I got it for [$] after rebate at CompUSA. Running it on a 2Ghz Pentium 4 with Windows XP. Installation and configuration was easy and the directions were pretty clear. Everything works, like time-shifting and recording. A tip: I created a separate partition on my drive just for video recording and caching. This way the data doesn't get fragmented and munged with all your Windows system files and you'll get a much smoother experience. The only problem is that in Windows XP, when you switch between users without logging out, the screen hiccups and it stopped recording. I think the picture quality is great; I see some noise patterns but then I also see them on my TV/VCR so I'm not blaming this product.
Rating:
Summary: Keep track of whats going on with CNN
Review: I purchased this card and installed it into a Emachines T1220 system (Celeron 1.2 Ghz, 256 Meg RAM, WIN XP) and it works fantastic. I have a home office and use a HP Laptop but have my kids Emachines desktop about 5 feet away. I just pop up CNN and keep track of whats going on in the world all day. This was a much cheaper solution to buying a TV. Graphic quality is great when the display size is kept small but is even acceptable at full screen. My daughter even watches cartoons on her PC now. When I asked her why she didn't go upstairs and watch it on TV she said this is cooler! It even came with a remote that works with no problems. Overall I'm very happy with it. I even used it to tape one of my favorite bands playing on the Late Late show and it worked great. For what it costs you can't go wrong! By the way when you install the drivers you are told they haven't been approved by Microsoft for Win XP but thy worked fine for me.
Rating:
Summary: Cheap, but you get what you pay for.
Review: It works, but if you expect much more you may be disappointed. The PCTV features no deinterlacing at all, leaving image quality in the poor bin. Even on slower moving video it can become annoying. For basic functionality it works. It features RF tuner, s-video, and composite inputs all which work fine. If you're strapped for cash it will work, but if you can stand to spend a bit extra, the money may be better spent on an ATI TV Wonder or competing product. It's hard to rate it too low despite the image quality for the...price, so I'll leave a Three behind with a word of warning.
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