With many ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) HD (High Definition) usb tv tuners on the market and many confusing or misleading reviews online, it can be very difficult to choose a usb HD tuner for your Desktop or notebook computer. So, I am writing this review with the hope that it will help those considering the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro stick make an informed decision about whether or not to buy this model.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You will NOT be able to view the High Definition programming you receive directly from your cable box with this tuner or the vast majority of TV tuners for PC or MAC. The only HD channels you will be able to view through your cable company will be UNENCRYPTED QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) channels by connecting the coaxial cable directly to a PC TV tuner like the PCTV HD pro stick. Search for "OCR" to find out about the few tuners that can decrypt QAM channels using a cable card.

There are several reviews online below that give basic details about what the PCTV HD Pro stick version 801e is capable of. In this review, I will focus instead on how it performs based on my daily use.

Cluboc.net - Nice photographs of software and hardware.
geek.com - Short review a few more photos of version 801e.
the-gadgeteer.com - Another brief review and close up photos of hardware.
sharkyextreme.com - Review and photos.
techwarelabs.com - Brief review.

The system used by reviewer:
CPU: Mobile Intel Core 2 Duo T5870 at 2.00 GHz (1995 MHz)
OS: Window Vista Business (which, like Windows Vista Basic, does NOT include Windows Media Center)
GPU: NVidia GeForce 9300M GS with 256MB of dedicated memory. Shader clock speed of 1450 MHz and a core clock speed of 580 MHz

A person on an older system may have a very different experience with the PCTV HD pro stick from the reviewer.
On the official Pinnacle support page some have reported problems.
Note: Avid sold PCTV to Hauppauge.

Hardware The Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro stick version 801e is a pretty impressive piece of hardware. I was very surprised by how well it handled NTSC (analog) channels through coaxial cable considering that it is only about 3/4 of an inch longer and only slightly wider than most USB keys. Though the NTSC channels were a bit noisy, the colors were accurate and the overall picture quality was good.
My NVIDIA discrete graphics card has a noise reduction option that eliminated the little bit of noise I saw on these NTSC channels. Even without noise reduction on most channels the noise was only noticeable when in full screen. Most will not notice any noise while watching live television (it is more noticeable when you take a snapshot of one of the noisier channels).

The supplied S-Video connection, which fits into the side of the unit, produced NTSC video much worse than what can be seen using the coaxial connection. Much more noise and not acceptable for video recording -- I have only tried it a few times. Also, the connection for sound used along with the S-Video connection is not the standard RCA cable connection. Most will need to buy an RCA audio adapter (since there is only one audio connection) or use a "Stereo Audio (1/8 inch)" connection, which I am sure most do not have.

The clear QAM -- which refers to the technology used to receive standard and high definition digital channels through your cable provider -- channels are tuned in nicely by the PCTV HD Pro stick. It has three scan modes available for tuning in channels: quick, best quality, and normal. Using the normal quality mode the PCTV HD Pro stick picked up all available clear QAM channels with excellent picture quality. Oddly enough, the best quality option has, at times, picked up fewer channels than the normal quality mode.
IMPORTANT NOTE: you will not be able to tune in the majority of the QAM HD and SD (standard definition) content offered by your cable provider because most channels are encrypted. Again, this device, and the majority of HD tuners on the market, only pick up UNENCRYTPED or clear QAM channels through a coaxial connection.

The ATSC or over the air free standard and high definition channels look amazing. Now, this would be true with just about any HD tv tuner card for your computer because the quality of ATSC channels has (virtually) nothing to do with the tuner itself. What does separate one card from another is how sensitive it is when it comes to tuning in ATSC channels. I had no problem tuning in all available ATSC channels using the supplied "high-gain telescopic" antenna. To be honest, I don't know if that was because I live in an area with strong signals or if it was due to the quality of the PCTV HD Pro stick and the included high gain antenna combination. I was also able to tune in all availabe FM radio stations and each sounded as well as they would if received by any non-HD radio.

The provided remote control works without using a separate USB infra-red connector unlike some other brands. It comes with two AAA batteries. However, it is works best when viewing analog channels. The way HD QAM and ATSC channels are numbered makes going directly to one of those channels difficult. For example, if the ATSC local NBC affiliate is on channel 32.2 the remote does not include a way to input the "." in 32.2.

Software

The software gives you preset recording quality options such as DVD, DVD long play, SVCD, and VCD for mpeg captures. But there is no way to control audio or video bit rate, screen resolution, or choose a video codec you may have installed on your system. The available video codec options are MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and trial versions that expire after 15 days of DivX, H.264, and MPEG-4 for PSP and IPod. During the trial period I experimented with each format. The quality was good with each. For free you can re-enable DivX after the 15 day trial period has ended, but you will have to pay extra to re-enable H.264, MPEG-4 for PSP and IPod after the trial period.

You will find that you have even less control over the way the TVCenter Pro software takes snapshots. In fact, you have absolutely no control over the compression method or the resolution used. The snapshots are only saved in .jpg file format and are highly compressed. This results in pretty bad looking snapshots in many cases, but not all. The resolution of each snapshot is determined by the resolution used by that particular channel. The resolution for HD channels has been 960x540 or 640x360 while analog channels are 640x480.

For live and time shifted television viewing and basic television recording the Pinnacle TVCenter Pro has performed fairly well. However, in windows Vista Business, for unknown reasons, the version 4.98.1903 of the Pinnacle TVCenter Pro software about a month after the initial install started crashing each time I closed the program. The error message from Windows Vista was "PMCLoader.exe has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Please close the program." This message popped up each and every time I closed the program. Needless to say, that was very annoying, but did not effect the way the program functioned while running. Occasionally, I had trouble changing the channels and had to restart the application -- but that rarely occurred. At times, when viewing a HD channel, the picture would suddenly go black and I had to restart the application to get live TV back. With NTSC channels there were times when the OSD (on screen display -- which shows channel name, number, etc.) all by itself would pop up on screen and seconds after that live TV would stop.
Update 4-19-09: - After scheduling to record the Amazing Race on CBS with version 4.98.1903 of the Pinnacle TVCenter Pro software, I ended up with a Divx video which, according to Windows, was 1.9GB in size but would only play for one second when opened in any installed video player. Unbelievable!

If the system instability I have experienced while using the PCTV HD pro stick is due to Windows Vista business, version 4.98.1903 of TVCenter Pro, or the combination of the my computer's hardware is unclear. It does, however, frequently crash when I choose the "Acceleration by graphics card" option in the "display" category under "TVCenter Pro Settings." This is most likely a software problem. Not choosing that option clears up the problem related to graphics card acceleration completely. Perhaps systems with a different method of graphics acceleration will not experience the same problem.
Update 6-1-09: In Windows XP service pack 2 I was able to enable graphics acceleration within TVCenter Pro 4.98.1903 without a problem.

Verdict

PMCLoader.exe problems

H264Codec.ax Access Violation

Linux Support

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GB-PVR

CyberLink PowerCinema version 6.0

CyberLink PowerCinema also supports the PCTV HD Pro stick version 801e. I have tested the trial version 6.0 of PowerCinema and, at least so far, it is much better than the software bundled with the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro stick. The ATSC picture quality seems better with the CyberLink software and the HD surround sound option is excellent. Screen captures from ATSC channels, which I love, are in .bmp format full 1080i (1920x1080 resolution) giving the user the option of choosing his/her own compression method, unlike the Pinnacle TVCenter Pro software.

The complaints I have so far about CyberLink PowerCinema are that there is no way to turn off time shifting, there is no support for clear QAM channels, and to register the software you will have to shell out roughly $100. Some may dislike the fact that all ATSC recordings are in .ts (transport stream) format. Also, during the trial period, CyberLink PowerCinema version 6.0 failed to record a scheduled program using the "Program Guide." It only created an empty .ts file with the name, date, and time of the scheduled television program. This occurred several times with different programs on different channels.

The only way I was able to successfully schedule a recording was to do it manually by using the "Schedule" advanced option. Set the channel, start time, end time, (scroll down) and optionally type in the name of program you are recording and it records flawlessly each time.

Recently, I discovered that CyberLink PowerCinema 6.0 frequently freezes when rewind, fast forward, and pause are used with time shifted standard definition NTSC television shows. After closing CyberLink PowerCinema once frozen, restarting the computer (running Vista service pack 3) is the only way to get the application to display live television again. I should mention that PowerCinema handles time shifted High definition ATSC flawlessly.

VirtualDub 1.8.8 (build 30091/release)