Pinnacle PCTV nano stick (DVB-t with MPEG4)

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theRocknRolla

46 posts

Geek

#21940 11-May-2008 21:47

Hey guys,

I just bought one from http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/uk/Products/Consumer+Products/PCTV+Tuners/PCTV+Digital+PVR+%28DVB-S_DVB-T%29/PCTVnanoStick.htm for a NZ$100. On the site it quotes 15-30days delivery. It came in 5 which was very surprising.

This usb tuner works quite well with channels 3, C4 and looks superb on Freeview HD sample channel. All the rest of the channels dispay but there is no sound with the included "Pinnacle TVCenter Pro" application. I think this is because of the use of LATM AAC on the TVNZ channels. EPG works fine too.

Im in the process of getting DVBViewer so i can get sound while pinnacle goes about updating their software(hope sooner than later).

nb. For anyone getting this tuner: before you scan for channels, set the country to united kingdom not NZ in the wizard.

#update
With the use of DVBViewer all channels work great with sound.

drbob

12 posts

Geek

#131011 14-May-2008 22:00

I also have the Pinnacle PCTV Nano Stick, which I bought in the UK & am using with my laptop. I have the same experience with the included TVCenter Pro software - I can receive all the channels, but only have sound on C4, Maori Television and Freeview HD. Which version of DVBViewer did you use? I couldn't see any mention of PCTV Nano Stick support on the DVBViewer website.

Samsung

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theRocknRolla

46 posts

Geek

#131034 15-May-2008 03:50

Im using DVBViewer v3.9.2.0

It works fine on all channels with alot less cpu usage than TV Center. Also i'm using PowerDVD8's video decoders which i think uses your 3d card... hence the low cpu usage. If you dont have PowerDVD 7 or 8 installed. You are able to choose the Pinnacle h.264 decoder that is installed with TV Center which still looks perfect but uses just a bit more cpu.

Recording works fine too. It captures the raw transport stream .ts (h.264/aac audio) ...so no loss in quality.

drbob

12 posts

Geek

#131123 15-May-2008 21:51

Okay, I've got DVBViewer up and running with the Nano Stick, definitely better than Pinnacle's PCTV software!

I'm having some decoder issues: The Pinnacle H.264 decoder is annoyingly slow (frame skips or audio sync problems) when decoding TV One or TV2 but is fine with all the other channels (including the HD preview). I've tried the CoreAVC H.264 decoder. It runs a treat on TV One and TV2, but it can't handle the other channels, such as C4, at all (the video freezes completely).

So now I can watch all channels, but have to switch decoder depending on which channel I want to watch (CoreAVC for TV One and TV2, Pinnacle for the rest). Very odd! I'll try and get hold of the PowerDVD8 decoder and see if that can handle everything.

By the way, my system's not too highly-powered. I'm using a Samsung Q35 laptop with Core Duo 1.83Mhz processor, 2Mb RAM, Vista 32-bit and Mobile Intel 945GM Express graphics (224Mb memory, 192Mb of it shared).

mentalinc

3140 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#131133 15-May-2008 22:15

The system is your problem.
its doing it all in software not hardware. dont expect much of an improvement.

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theRocknRolla

46 posts

Geek

#131137 15-May-2008 22:24

Yea your specs are are just below the minimum requrements to be decoding h.264 at high resolutions. Im not sure how well PowerDVD8's decoder will peform with out a 3d card tho im sure you would see atleast a small improvement.

drbob

12 posts

Geek

#131142 15-May-2008 23:12

mentalinc: The system is your problem.
its doing it all in software not hardware. dont expect much of an improvement.

Sure - I'm impressed it's working at all to be honest. But I find it odd that I can get full-screen 1280x720 DVB-T using the CoreAVC decoder on TV One and TV2, but that the same decoder won't work with C4, which is only 720x576. Meanwhile, the (apparently slower) Pinnacle decoder works fine on C4. It suggests to me there's some sort of software issue, at least with the CoreAVC decoder when working on C4 etc.

If anyone knows of any other fast H.264 decoders I could try, I'll have a go. Otherwise I'll just have to keep switching between decoders every time I change channel (perhaps I can write a script to automate this).

PS: I've downloaded and tried the H.264 decoder from PowerDVD 7, and I've found it no better than the Pinnacle H.264 one on my system.