Greetings All!

Well, I didn't buy the extra bell/whistle integrated TV tuner w/ Windows Media Center Edition with my Alienwarelappy, so last night while I was browsing the gaming aisle at Best Buy, I somehow wandered into the accessories area and voila! my eyes fell upon a USB tv tuner. This review is for those who'd like to add the tuner to yourlappy or desktop with minimal downtime, and without busting your wallet.

Now, to be honest, I was already wondering about tv tuners and I'd done a bit of research over the Internet for a compact (read: not bulky and doesn't require a PhD to hook up) tuner and came across this review.Not exactly a glowing piece, but I took into consideration that the author was running an older HP that definitely wasn't up to the task, and he noted that. Obviously this doesn't apply to the AW m9700, so I pressed on and perused other opinions. Overall, the vibes I read were good, and the Pinnacle met my pre-established criterion: recording capabilities (mpeg/DiVX), size, ease of installation, and price. I believe adding Windows MCE w/tv tuner & remote to theAlienware laptopis $140; I purchased the Pinnacle for $99 at Best Buy. It comes with remote and Pinnacle Media Center software and is capable of recording in NTSC (cable or over the air), and ATSC (HDTV up to 1080i, SDTV).

I have DirectTV satellite cable, so I just took the cable end that would go into my tv from the decoder box and plugged that into the Pinnacle. During installation, you'll be prompted to scan for channels, and I was initially confused that only two channels registered; 3 and 14. Took a minute, but then I remembered that with cable, channel 3 is usually the default channel, and changing the channels is controlled through your decoder box remote control. I dragged channel 3 to "My Favorite Channels" and whatever channel you have tuned will show up in a preview box to the right. I couldn't capture the video playing in the preview box with printscreen, which explains the blank screen you see in photo #6. Anyway, so I change the channels with my DirectTV remote and I could select what channels I wanted to view/record from. Now, this isn't to say the Pinnacle remote is useless; you can change channels, adjust the volume, and rewind/pause/forward/record with it. You can also pause and rewind live tv with the TimeShifter, just like TiVo.

I took some photos of the Pinnacle, screenshots of the installation process, and did a couple of video clips in mpeg, which I converted to .wmv using Blaze Media Pro. As you can see, the Pinnacle is roughly the size of a tube of Chapstick, and it's pretty easy to install; USB plug-and-play.

Pics

Video 1--SpeedTV snow machine race. I know this video seems like a shameless plug for the Air Force, but I swear I didn't know we were sponsoring this event (recorded in "Good" quality)

Video 2--Constantine video clip (recorded in "Best" quality)

Setup time, including the obligatory Pinnacle software update download, took approximately 15 minutes. When you're recording the video, it automatically defaults to the "C:\My Documents\My Videos\Capture\Video" folder. You can change what fo

 

i have ait hdtv tuner and i use mine like the tivo to recorde the shows i miss when i am at work.
for quality record in
Format: MPEG-2
Resonlution: 720 x 480
Quality: 46.00MB /Minute or 6M Bit /sec
Audio: 44.100 KHz, 16 bit, Stereo

one more thing, i record the shows i miss in a format and resonlution my mp3 player can play and i watch the shows i miss everywhere.

 

The capture video looks better than my ATI tv wonders.