Pinnacle Systems Studio PCTV USB

TV tuner cards for your PC are nothing new, but however tempting the prospect of watching Teletubbies when you should be doing something more productive may be, having to open up your PC to fit one can be a daunting task, and notebook users have been left out of the picture entirely - until now.

Unlike traditional TV tuners, which come on a PCI expansion card and include software to watch TV on your computer or separate tuner boxes - which turn your monitor into a separate TV - this gadget comes with a USB connection and connects to your PC externally. Because USB peripherals are detected and then installed automatically, you don't have to open your machine to fit them, so adding a TV tuner to your PC has never been so easy.

The unit connects quickly and easily. An aerial lead is fitted to the 'TV-in' socket and a cable run from the tuner's 'line out' socket to your PC's soundcard. With these in place, it's a simple matter of connecting the tuner to a spare USB port on your PC, and Windows then prompts for the supplied CD-ROM to set up your tuner.

We had no problems installing the PCTV as both drivers and software were easily installed - and the automatic configuration program set up the optimal settings with the minimum of fuss.

So now the drivers are in place, and it's time to install the software to watch TV on your computer. PCTV comes with its own Vision program. It also has an 'autoscan' facility for detecting TV stations which you can then name and number. You can watch television in the viewer program's resizeable window or view in full-screen mode.

For full-screen viewing we'd recommend lots of memory and a fast processor to alleviate jerky pictures. Using a set-top aerial in an office surrounded by electrical equipment, we found the reception to be fairly patchy - although we did manage to pick up Channel 5 - so a roof-top or loft-mounted aerial would be a much better long-term solution.

You can connect your cable box to store cable channels, or hook up a VCR or camcorder - ideal for image capture. We found the PCTV's capture facilities were a joy to use and remarkably powerful.

Unfortunately, Pinnacle's PCTV doesn't come with teletext. We were also surprised to find an FM radio tuner mentioned in the PCTV manual and the necessary software on the CD-ROM, especially as the box makes no reference to it. However, on closer inspection a flimsy insert informed us that this feature is not implemented in the UK or France although the software is still installed anyway.

The Pinnacle has an excellent interface and a user-friendly approach. The comprehensive edit suite is another nice touch. However, the lack of teletext is disappointing, as it is still a useful service, even in the digital age.

Contact: Pinnacle Systems: 01895 424228

Minimum requirements: Windows 98, Pentium MMX 166MHz PC, 32Mb of memory, CD-ROM drive, Direct X6.1 capable sound and graphics cards, USB port, cable TV support

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