Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick

I would be all over this if it was 19.99 but I’ll just hold off for the time being. Cool but not 40 bucks cool.

This seems pretty sweet. Would be nice to have some shows in 720p on the compy, if there was anything worth watching.

1080p or 1080i? Doesn’t say what type it will receive and render…

Ok I feel like a silly dork asking this question, but I don’t have cable or satellite TV, just crappy old rabbit ears (yeah, I know, shuddup about it already.) Can I get cable TV signals if I buy this gadget?

Not for me. I just bought a QAM/HDTV USB Stick last week.

More review:

http://www.everythingusb.com/pinnacle_pctv_hd_pro_stick.html

http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4208929.html

It takes a bit of work to get it going in Ubuntu because of some problems with the kernel but I’ve read that it works pretty much “out of the box” with the new Fedora.

Does this device allow for individuals to plug a console into it and play it on the laptop? Just curious, because if it does, I’m in! I’ve been looking at similar devices such as the HP expresscard tv tuner and the ATI USB tuner but those things are expensive.

it has a coax connection so you can hook it to cable or Satellite.

Had one. Returned it after less than 24hrs. It was a resource hog; slowed down (to the point of being unusable) a- quad core, 3 gigs ram- sli 7800gtx - raptor’s raid 0 - WIN XP. If I can’t run it in a window and do other things what’s the point.

The guide would never download so no “tivoing.” Picture quality was iffy-. I live in a big city not 8 miles from the antenna farm.

Did I mention it gets hot. Too hot to touch on one occasion. Antenna is huge. Needless to say, mine was new, so you maybe buying my returned one now, I wouldn’t. But hey, that’s just me.

To answer the questions: Yes this can get cable, BUT, you have to already have cable service. It would tune cable by plugging the cable into the stick instead of the antenna, much the same way as a TV

And YouTube video from TigerDirect

where can you pick up cable or HDTV for free? does it have to be a wireless spot?

Anyone know if this is compatible with SnapStream’s BeyondTV software? I know it works with some HD tuners, including USB ones. Would like to buy this if it does…

Would this be worth it to buy for the antenna alone?

Having troubles processing. :frowning:

Software is junk that comes with it (i got it from the last wootoff a while back). For some reason, my analog cable will not work with Windows Media Center, but if you can pick up HD channels OTA it will work fine. I had to use a 45day free trial (Beyond TV) to watch my analog channels on my PC. I have experimented with Chris TV Lite and some others, can’t remember the names, but if you plan on using this with analog in Windows Media Center, don’t plan on it. I messed with settings for the LONGEST time trying to fix it. If anyone has found a solution to this, please enlighten me.

Thanks!

That is interesting, but it is about a year and a half old. I wonder if things have improved since then?

I bought two of them new from Best Buy…

$9.99 each.

Yes, these exact ones. I thought they had mislabled them on the shelf and was determined to make them sell me them for the price on the shelf, but they scanned correctly.