Review on PCTV Deluxe Tuner and Video, powered by Pinnacle, with USB 2.0 connectivity by Jaymai Alford

I recently bought a Pinnacle PCTV Deluxe because: #1 I wanted to record TV onto my hard drive so I could always record my favorite TV shows and sports. #2 I didn't have PCI expansion slots for a PCI based TV tuner/capture card, but I did have USB 2.0 which PCTV Deluxe is based on. The Pinnacle DV500 Plus that I own/use for video editing took a bit of trial and error to get this hardware to work properly. If all you are satisfied with is plugging in the device, loading the install disk and clicking the install button, I would avoid this product in its current state. I'm an IT pro and it took me a little tweaking to get it working the way I want it to. However, it seems that PCTV is doing its job well enough. The TV signal arrives correctly and the video signal can be output to my TV via my video card. The video I shoot is clean and very satisfying to me. All functions declared on the box work, but bugs appear from time to time. Sometimes the TV viewer and recorder crashes, causing the shows I set up to record while I was away to disappear. Sometimes, and I don't know the exact reason, the recorded video is out of sync with the audio part, resulting in a delay between the video and the audio part of the recording. I've found that if I stop recording (e.g. during a commercial break) and start another recording from that point, the problem goes away. I believe it's another program or Windows itself using the disk or CPU, creating a signal interrupt and making the recording asynchronous. Whatever the reason, I'm not experiencing the excruciating sync issues that other users have reported. There have been many complaints about the remote control that came with PCTV Deluxe. I didn't have any issues with the range or responsiveness of the remote control. I'll admit that I use the remote at about 1.5 feet away most of the time, but I've tested it across the room (10 feet) with no issues. transmitted via cable (e.g. if you watch TV directly via cable) and the signal is transmitted via Pinnacle PCTV Deluxe. I don't understand why this is such a big annoyance to some reviewers. This is to my advantage as it allows me to manually record much more accurately by first watching what's on TV and then hitting the record button just before the commercial ends/program starts. PCTV Deluxe does NOT currently include software for automatically recording TV programs (as originally promised in Pinnacle's press release for this product). You must manually schedule any programs you want. According to the Pinnacle tech support I contacted, they are planning to release a free update for their customers (Titan TV, which is used for automatic programming) soon. In conclusion, I have to say that I am personally satisfied with the product. upon its initial release (enough that I had no intention of returning the product, despite my supplier's liberal return policy). However, I have a feeling that the product was released in a hurry and is not ready for the tech faint of heart. Based on rumours, I'm under the impression that PCI based TV tuner/capture cards are more stable and reliable (I suspect they've been around much longer than USB based TV capture devices). If your computer has a PCI card slot, look at PCI-based solutions first. If you're unhappy with anything in this department and are willing to spend a weekend troubleshooting, consider PCTV Deluxe.Note. I'm running PCTV Deluxe on an AMD Athlon 1400MHz, 512MB DDR, ATI Radeon 7500, SCSI hard drive for OS and programs and writing to an 80GB IDE RAID drive (two 40GB hard drives in RAID0). According to Pinnacle's website, the processor is actually below specs for capturing DVD quality scores, but seems up to the task.