Reviews

$79.99 HD TV tuner card - I'm watching HD on the big screen

Hi folks - well, it's a wife's nightmare and a geek dream come true for me. My son Jeff, who now lives in east Portland (OR), moved his recording studio gear from our upstairs home theater room to the basement of his rental house. He's second year at Portland State University. Well, good old dad has reclaimed the "play room" and I now have a roll cart with my video gaming gear and a full on PC! Picture tons of cables leading from the tower roll cart to my surround sound system set up, an upscaling DVD player, you name it! My wife just covers her eyes when entering the room (I'm sure of it).

My friend Andy Marken, who does PR for lots of companies, recently sent me a Pinnacle HD TV tuner card designed to be plugged into a PCI slot of a PC. It's the card brother to the USB version I've been reviewing all over the air waves this holiday season (to learn about the USB version go to my site, and click on the holiday PDF slide show link on the opening page - great product, by the way).

The Pinnacle HD TV tuner card is a pure delight! All I had to do was pop it into an open PCI slot, install the tuner control software (which gives you DVR too), have the software scan my cable TV stations and bingo - I was watching TV via my big InFocus projector. But the real fun came when I tapped the card's HD capabilities. I used a single pole antenna that came with the USB version of the product - asked the software to scan the air - and it found 22 free HD channels in my area, including NBC, ABC, CBS, etc. I have not upgraded to digital HD TV yet, still on Comcast regular TV. So I now watch Sunday and Monday football in HD glory. Husband tip - want to convince the "real boss" that HD is great. Do a test run upgrading a PC with this card, then do a show and tell. It's a great card with loads of easy to understand and run software features - and it even comes with a tiny remote control.