Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick TV Tuner - USB - ATSC, NTSC - 230100090 - Watch TV to Go on your Notebook!! Plug-n-Play!

Simple answer - DO NOT BUY this product because the installation cannot install after you've updated Windows Vista to Service Pack 1. The Pinnacle support has got New message since April 8, 2008, acknowledging that they are aware of problem because thy manage to see it for themselves and are attempting to find a solution to the problem neither any of the updated software programs will NOT install and give the following error 'No hard disk space found'. I had 100Gb hard drive space and many others user are posting on that forum are getting the same error if you ever had to install/re-install the software for the HDTV pro stick or any other HD USB products for that matter. You can still watch TV if you use microsoft's Media Center.
 
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Wow! I added this to a HP Pavilion I bought at Buy.com and it works flawlessly. Even has DVR capabilities. Now I can clear my office of that old TV monitor. Best for watching the news while I work. Great value for the price.
 
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Laptop came with media center, but no TV card. This device, although complicated and difficult to install, is a great device. I don't use their software, but it is fully compatible with Media Center. Better reception, however, with their software, but it did not recognize my cable channels. Price was great, and would purchase more items from them!
 
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when you can get it working. Supplied software is worthless. It hangs and takes a while to setup, tune and then to operate. However, with Windows Media Center you can use the TV feature of the WMC system to watch without any issues and it even has the TV guide.
 
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Overall this is a nice device, but it does not work well for me. I must be too far from the transmitters. Some of the digital stations come in okay, others do not. The key challenge is the responsiveness of the unit. My new laptop (on the low end of dual core CPUs) is not fast enough. It takes a LONG time just to change channels and full screen in HD mode is choppy. Configuration: HP Pavilion dv6000 AMD TL-50 1 Meg ram NVIDIA GeForce Go 7200 graphics
 
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This product is fantastic. Very easy to set up and install, provided you meet all of the required specs. My favorite is the DVR function and it works really well with Windows XP Media Center after the free program guide is downloaded. The picture does not appear as sharp on the screen when the TV tuner is connected to the cable line. However, the playback of the DVD recording had an excellent picture. By the way, I recorded from Windows XP Media Center and the Pinnacle software and both were great! The HDTV reception was excellent using the included antenna, but for my area, the analog was not. Highly Recommended!
 
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I use on a Dell laptop with Vista Premium. Pinnacle installed easily and runs outstandingly. I get very good digital reception using the little antenna provided. Normally I use cable for TV, but I wanted to see if Pinnacle would work with antenna in locations where I would take laptop.
 
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Small thing size like a candy in Russia, and even with my basic knowledge of English and computer I was able to install and watch TV.
 
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Able to get digital tv using my computer. Great picture not like from analog tv. If you use window vista, will need to download software from their website.
 
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I bought this on the strength of previous user reviews and Pinnacle's reputation. Only a few of the local analog channels in my area come in crystal clear using the antenna provided, but it receives every available digital channel perfectly!
 
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Purchased this product to watch and record the Super Bowl in HD. Picture is amazing on the digital channels. Projecting it on my 52"x92" theater screen and it looks great. Works well on XP SP2 using v4.5.4 of Media Center software. Last night installed on a Vista machine using the beta download from the Pinnacle website. Works well on Vista also. Download is 400MB, so high speed connections only. I'm about 20-22 miles from the TV station's transmitters and signal quality is excellent, especially if you can get the included antenna near a window. Bought a more expensive HDTV antenna just in case but have returned it as the included antenna works very well in my area. Make sure you have a minimum 2Ghz CPU and 512MB of RAM (1GB is better of course) to make it an enjoyable experience. HD recordings use up around 5GB per hour so make sure you've got disk space as well if recording is planned.
 
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You wouldn't believe it until you saw it in person. This little gizmo will display free to air digital signal stations on your computer just like an expensive LCD HDTV. I am using mine on my laptop and it looks marvelous. Where I live it is hard to pull in stations and I still get several analog and five digital stations including ABC,CBS,NBC and Fox. I can't wait to take it on the road. You won't be sorry with this purchase unless you live far from a major city. Analog stations are no better than buying a cheap TV. The digital stations are simply amazing.
 
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This is a great product! Did not have any trouble installing it and scanning for regular and HD channels immediately. It did require two update downloads via the install process (requiring reboot each time). But once that was done, it took me to the setup wizard, scanned and registered local and HD channels and was watching TV on my laptop. The only downside are: 1. Have not figured out how to key in specific channels not yet registered via the setup/scan; and 2. Some other reviewers with older laptops had problems making this work - I'm running on a Core 2 DUO with lots of main memory - this may be a significant factor to getting this product to work the first time.
 
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This little thing gets better reception than the HDTV Zenith Antenna I got for my parent's settop box. Best of all, it's amazingly small. I was able to install the software and run the unit the first time without any problem. Scanning for channels returned more HD channels than I thought existed. Location is a big factor, since the number of channels I got went down as I tried the unit at my house. (Initially, I had tried it at my brother's house). One word of warning is that be sure your laptop has the required processing power. I have a Dell X1 and the pictures would stutter. I wish I had known about that before I bought it. If worked flawlessly on my brother's HP laptop. Overall, this thing is great on those long trips, where you can use your laptop to watch DVDs, surf the web, do some work, and now watch TV.
 
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I did a lot of research before buying this product. I saw quite a few negative comments on similiar products made by Happauge and ATI, but not Pinnacle. First, I ordered this product on 18 December and received it on 20 December and I used the regular shipping (which was free). It took about 20-30 mins to load the software due to the upgrades, plus it got caught up once. After the instal, I followed the directions which are very simple. I was in my basement, extended the antenna and searched for channels. I was amazed how many channels it found and how clear they were. I do have one small negative...I'm trying to take some old VHS-C tapes and put them on DVD. It appears you need a coaxial cable to carry the audio. The regular white (or red) A/V cable does not work. I'm off to radio shack to see if there is a coverter plug I can buy. Did I mention with the $30 rebate and $30 off for my buy.com card this only cost me $68.49. What a deal!
 
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Love it. Best part is I can watch Lost in HD without paying for the service through my cable company. Make sure you get the latest patch from the Pinnacle site - yes, SW is involved and there is always a patch to make it better. I think it's version 4.5.2 which has sofar worked flawlessly on my laptop. I have traveled with this thing accross the country, make sure you scan for your channels at every location you want to watch. On average I get around 15 to 20 crisp digital TV signals, a lot of them in HD - the included antenna is pretty strong, just make sure it's by a window. Don't even bother scanning for analog stations, the quality is crap compared to the digital ones. This is a great little product, although it would be cool to also use it as a memory stick. Maybe the next version?
 
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I was a little skeptical about this thing actually pulling an HD signal to my laptop. However, I cannot say enough good things about this product. The picture quality is nothing short of amazing. I can now take my laptop out on the patio and watch my sporting events in crystal clear HD. The non-HD digital channels are also very high quality. Love it!!!
 
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