Pinnacle PCTV TV Tuner and Video Capture Card

If having a separate television and computer aren't enough for you, now you can watch television on your PC. The Pinnacle Studio PCTV is a TV tuner card that allows you to receive television signals and watch them clearly on your desktop. After you get past the novelty, you'll appreciate the practical and fun applications of the Studio PCTV.

We installed the capture card in a free PCI slot on our motherboard and connected the audio loop-back cable from the audio-out jack on the tuner card to the audio-in jack on the sound card. We needed to install the software twice as several drivers were not installed on the first try. The manual left a little to be desired and we found that we needed to resort to the help function quite frequently to understand specific features of the software. Online documentation was also slim, but once we found the information, using all the applications was simple and intuitive.

After we connected an antenna to the TV tuner, reception was surprisingly clear. (You also have the option of connecting cable to the input instead.) The images were not too pixelated when viewed at a 16-bit, high-color resolution. We had the option of viewing the picture at full screen, 640 x 480, or 320 x 240 pixels; the full screen picture looked crisper than a standard television without a cable connection. If you have a computer in a living area at home with a decent-sized monitor, you may be tempted to watch TV on your computer.

The Studio software features an easy-to-use interface that lets you capture video from the tuner or from composite or S-Video sources. Making movies is as simple as dragging and dropping clips, adding titles (which you can customize with the easy TitleDeko software), overlaying sound, and, with one click, making the compiled frames into a digitized AVI (audio video interleaved) or MPEG movie. We threw together a short film using several television clips and some previously created AVI files, added sound effects over the top, created titles, and saved the movie--all in under 45 minutes. The final product, a two-minute MPEG movie, was about 8.3 MB. Although slightly rudimentary, this feature of the Pinnacle Studio PCTV is perfect for families who want to compile clips to send to friends, and the results are surprisingly slick.

Pros:

• Great picture
• Easy-to-use drag-and-drop software
• Powerful features
• Terrific value

Cons:

• Slim documentation
• Slightly difficult installation

With Studio PCTV, you can watch TV on your PC while you surf the Web. Turn your computer into a VCR and record and play your favorite TV shows just like a VCR. Studio PCTV captures footage from any video source - broadcast TV, camcorder, or video - so you can create your own summer blockbuster movies complete with Hollywood-style video effects. Then create MPEG movies or streaming video for the Web.