Welcome guest, is this your first visit? Create Account now to join.
  • Login:

Welcome to the OldVersion.com Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed.

Results 1 to 3 of 3
  1. #1
    Super Moderator
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Posts
    3,496

    Default Pinnacle Usb HDTV

    Bought the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick yesterday. Although I am using it on my iMac and Macbook, it is sold as a Windows XP Product. Under the iMac I am using the EyeTV software.

    What it is, is a USB HDTV tuner. Allows me to receive ATSC HD and SDTV content via an antenna or via a cable.

    Although I live too far to receive any over-the-air HD content, I actually got it to connect to my cable. Thus turning my iMac into a PVR (Personal Video Recorder.) This now completely eliminates my need for a VHS VCR. For a while I was using my hardware DVD Recorder. I can now also, connect my VCR to this device and transfer home-movies to the computer for later editing. But for now. I am using it to record TV shows.

    I can export the TV shows to mpeg, QT, DivX, and even create iPod movies with 1 click.

    What's nice about it is the program guide, I can seek for TV shows, and once-click set it to record. I've pretty much got this recording shows 24 hours a day now for the next month.

    Disk space is now going to be an issue, so the next purchase will have to be a 1TB network backup device.

    It can also do PIP. But for now, I have just turned my 20" iMac into a television set.

    Another interesting way to use this is to connect from another computer and stream the TV shows to another computer. This I have not tried yet.

    Now I can easily record TV shows, and even burn them to a DVD-RW to view on the Big Screen television when I want.

    Though now I am tempted to purchase the Apple TV next.

    If anyone ever wanted to transfer VHS tapes to DVD. This product will do it and more. Or, if you have a newer computer and do not want to shell out the money for a HiDef TV and HDTV programming, this may be the route to go.
    Last edited by locustfurnace; 03-26-2007 at 05:46 PM. Reason: typo

  2. #2
    Administrator
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Location
    Uk
    Posts
    1,450

    Default

    been thinking about this for a while locust,i have actually got a pinnacle card that i have yet to install but i havent got round to sorting out software yet,as the card was removed from another pc and obviously i didnt get the software and drivers etc with it.drivers for xp are no worries as the pinnacle site have them in the downloads section.as far as software for it and editing the videos i transfer from vhs i may just call upon your knowledge for guidence when i get round to it.look out for pm or email sometime.
    simply me

  3. #3
    Super Moderator
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Posts
    3,496

    Default

    Sounds good.

    Right now I am setting it up on my Macbook. As I now have a few dozen of TV shows recorded on the iMac, and I want to edit out the commercials, but I do not want to miss getting any more content.

    So far, one strange thing has happened. Seems my Internet Connection was down. Which happens even on cable. But, this totally froze the program from working. So I missed an entire days worth of recording. No big deal, as I just got the device. But one of those annoying programs glitches which makes no sense to me.

    So, editing out the commercials is no big deal with the EyeTV software, and its by far the easiest video editing I've done. And I have done a lot of video editing with numerous programs.

    Another tip I discovered so far. This ofcourse might be only relevant to the Mac software, but a tip which could possibly translate to other PVR software.

    When I wanted to export the recorded program so I could encode to XviD. I went through the steps of exporting it to an MPEG stream.
    But what I found out later, is that that's not necessary. As the content is already saved as an mpeg stream under the TV Recording archive folder.
    Had I not discovered this, I would have been eating up disk space twice as fast.


 

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •