Pinnacle PCTV HD Card 800i Review - FastSilicon.com

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Pinnacle PCTV HD Card 800i Review

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Pinnacle PCTV HD Card 800i Review
Specifications
What You Get
Installation
TV Center Pro
Conclusion

Page 6 of 6

Conclusion

Pinnacle's PCTV HD 800i package is enticingly inexpensive, averaging around $79 retail and a bit less if you look around. With Pinnacle's brand recognition, attractive packaging, and an attractive price, a lot of people would be encouraged to buy this product. We say however that you should wait until Pinnacle gets the issues with this product sorted out. Lord knows we've waited more than long enough ourselves.

We started this review in November of last year believe it or not, but decided to forgo a review to give Pinnacle and it's parent company Avid, time to rectify the issues with this cards software and drivers. We were given reasonable assurances that a new driver and suite would be made available after CES. Since we work in this business and are painfully aware of just how much of a general distraction prepping for CES is, we cut them some slack and waited patiently.

As it stands now however, though we were given a beta driver set to play with last week, the latest available application suite made available to us is the same 4.94b beta suite Pinnacle released in October of last year. Despite assurances that we would recieve an alpha build of TV Center Pro 4.95, none was forthcoming.

It is 6 months in to this products official launch, and 3 months since the last beta application suite was made available to the public. We feel we have given Pinnacle more than enough time to rectify the issues with this device and decided this week we simply had to "go" with the review, and let the cards fall where they may. Where have they fallen? Clearly, at the feet of Pinnacle's development team. It is long past time to get a Vista Certified product that supports ClearQAM actually doing both things in a proper manner.

Pinnacle, we're sorry, but we recommend you go back to the drawing board on this one.

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My Take On This Card

fasthair (12.216.148.xxx) 2008-02-05 00:46:28

Having followed along on the Pinnacle web site with this battle I know all to well about your troubles. I will say the hardware is a good piece and when used with some good software (my choice has been SageTV) it is hard to find fault with the card. Other then, as you noted, the remote will not work with anything but the Pinnacle junkware.

The software is another matter all together. I have never seen a bigger POS software. Since this software is the same for all Pinnacle hardware these problems are not limited to just this card.

The only thing worse is the lack of support from Pinnacle. From deleting threads from mad customers asking for help. To flat telling them tough luck on support for X64 OS is unforgivable. Then to lay the blame on Microsoft is nothing but hog wash.

Since I don't have to be as PC in my review as you do I will go on record and say this is a don't buy. Hardware is a nice piece, the software is junk! Until Pinnacle fixes the software that has been a pro...

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I agree completely

Aryn (68.42.54.xxx) 2008-02-23 00:57:38

I have suffered through Pinnacle problems before, and I SWORE to NEVER NEVER NEVER buy another pinnacle product before. Your experience is exactly the same one I have with *every* Pinnacle product I have ever purchased. This is not an exaggeration. I loathe this company. Do they even test their products? The answer is no. I think all of their software is theoretical and they don't test anything. They just release it to the public and see what happens.
Horrible! If I could kick a Pinnacle shareholder in the head I would.

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Jeremy (96.28.117.xxx) 2008-03-04 20:16:58

Well after having to completely reinstall Windows just to get the software to work on my Dell Precision 370 Workstation 3Ghz with 2Gb of ECC ram I have to agree the software sucks... it will work for about 10 minutes if you don't channel surf, less if you do... the audio will start to skip then the video will freezes

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Anonymous (98.24.80.xxx) 2008-03-11 16:33:30

I too followed your time on the Pinnacle "support forums". I too had issues with the software that came with the card. It is JUNK.

I am however delighted with the hardware. I am using it with MythTV under linux and it produces terrific video.

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Pinnacle bites..

Joe (71.206.1.xxx) 2008-04-05 20:53:49

When Vista went RTM, I was already looking into solutions for another product, the HDTV hybrid stick(usb tuner). It'd work well enough in Vista 32 bit with the xp drivers...

well... a year later and I'm working in 64 bit(this is still a year ago mind you), pinnacle gives me the run around, blah blah blah... will not support x64 vista evar... their site is garbage.

So I took it upon myself to assemble and release a driver package that worked fantastically for their product in Vista x64.. and they were signed as well so no F8 drama...

I posted it on their forums and was quickly squashed. Their mods and support crew leave a lot to be desired. I'm tired of the gestapo ways and not benefiting from the work WE do to make THEIR shoddy product better. They alienate their customer base. It's a shame that instances like that happen all the time and yet only now with the Creative X-Fi debacle does it actually gain any light.

Oh, well. Back to trying to get this piece of crap working a...

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n/a

REY (71.249.44.xxx) 2008-05-09 13:36:20

I can't get the card to work on XP. the software is suck. even with the new beta version still no go. sucks. the cars has relased long time ago. but still no fix to it. suck..

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Finally !!!

DaScud (24.130.155.xxx) 2008-05-26 12:50:17

Looks like pinnacle just released version 4.98 of the pinnacle tv center software and it has nearly fixed all the crashes for me. I run Vista business 32bit and changing clearQAM channels works fine without crashing. Looks like they finally got their heads out of the sand and clicking the down channel button now goes to the previous and up goes to the next channel (what were the developers thinking in the 4.95 release). Best of all is that the pctv HD 800i card works perfectly fine with my beyondTV software. So goodbye pinnacle tv center and alls well in my tv watching kingdom :-)

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.