Here are my findings when I started using the Pinnacle PCTV Dual Hybrid Pro PCIe and MediaCentre version 4.23.841.

Installation:
The version of software on the disc I got with my TV card is MediaCentre 4.23.841. Also on the disc is .NET Framework 1.1 which is required. I used the application to check for updates and it reported that I was using the latest version (more on this below).

Installation went smoothly enough although some more plain English guidance during the set-up stage would have been nice (just thinking of the less experienced users). Compared to the old Hauppauge's handful of drivers and applications that needed installing, the Pinnacle's process was a doddle.

Changing settings:
Changing settings once installed has proved problematic for me. For one you can't change a setting while watching TV, instead, if you come across something that you want to change, then you have to quit out of the TV, enter the Settings application and find your way to the relevant section... all the time remembering what you went there to change! Then you have to quit out of that and back into the MediaCentre to see the effect. One time I changed a simple setting and basically screwed up the MediaCentre, it caused a Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) and my computer rebooted itself a split second later (not enough time to read the BSOD. It kept doing this until I re-installed the whole thing again. The setting turned out to be related to specifying my sound card instead of the TV card as the audio hardware. Why it's an option, what it does (if were to work) and why it causes a BSOD I don't know.

It's annoying that you cant change the channel names from within the MediaCentre. When I installed the whole thing it found some duplicated terrestrial channels (radio and TV), some obviously better than others and deciding which ones to keep/delete/rename was tricky and this was made more difficult by not being able to deal with them there and then. Also in the channel editing section there are a few glitches. In some parts of the tree structure the option to delete a channel is greyed out. I found I could delete a channel my going through the Hardware part, but when I went back in to the Media Centre the channel I had deleted was still there but just greyed out. I then went back in to edit my channels again and found that they still showed up in the AllInactive part, I deleted them from there and all was well. The tree structure seems glitchy also because when you delete a channel and try and select another channel to delete the tree structure keeps collapsing one branch per click until all are closed and you have to make you way back through the structure from the beginning - very tedious if you have a number of duplicated channels that you want to get rid of. Oh and you don't need to click the Apply button after deleting a channel.

I have no idea how you manually add a Freeview channel. The list of options seem immense whereas all the channels I've come across on the internet only provide you with the Freeview channel number, i.e. 36 for Channel 5 (because I miss Home and Away!) and 702 for BBC Radio 2 (because I want to listen to Russell Brand on Saturday evenings!). Instead the channel editor gives you frequency box here, acronym box there...

An option that is a waste of space is the Transparency option for the channel details that pop up (for 3 seconds by default) when changing channel. It would be nice to set this to 50%, which you can do, but even my high-end system cant cope and the TV picture goes all stuttery.

Other annoyances:
The lack of keyboard shortcuts is frustrating. I'm used to using them in WinTV and then it was possible to customise the remote by assigning those keyboard commands to buttons on the remote. Keyboard shortcuts are used widely for the blind and visually impaired. Also due to the glitches mentioned above, using the remote has its limitations and when doing so I have found myself grabbing the keyboard and mouse.

I don't have a stereo set up as such, instead I use a quadraphonic set up with speakers or switch to a 5.1 setup with headphones when I want to watch late night movies. This works fine with recoded programs as sound comes out all speakers, but when watching live TV sound only comes out the front two speakers.

A minor glitch is that the icons for Maximise/Restore are sometimes the wrong way round. Occasionally the Maximise icon is displayed when Maximised and the Restore icon is displayed when in a small window - this should be the other way round.

I used two monitors. I usually use my primary display to watch TV but occasionally drag it to my secondary display if I'm working on something. This works fine. However, if I close PMC with it on my secondary display and then open it again, as with most windows and applications it opens in the position where it was closed (on the secondary display). The problem is that for some reason the windows settings get reset - I prefer to set the icons to small and I have the progress bar part of the record bar displayed - icons return to large and the progress bar is closed. This doesn't happen when opening and closing on my primary display.

Occasionally the PMC Scheduler application that runs in the task bar prevents my computer from shutting down. I tell the computer to shut down and nothing happens. I have to close the Scheduler first. And don't you just love messages that ask for your response, yet the options they give... well lets just say they may as well have a "Take a Gamble" button! Take the following example that is displayed when you have a recording scheduled but you try and shut down:

Yes or No what?
I want to shut down anyway? My system does support automatic wake-up? I want tea and biscuits with that!?

One off glitch:
I was watching TV and then decided to watch a recorded show, however when the recording began to play the sound from the previous TV show was still being played over the top. I had to quit PMC and open it again.

Updates:
As stated above the version of MediaCentre I received on the disc was 4.23.841 and when using the application to check for updates it stated there were none. However, I visited the pinnacle website (www.pinnaclesys.com), and in the support section I found TV Centre Pro 4.9.1 for download. I followed the steps to install it by first uninstalling Media Centre. Unlike the MediaCentre application on the disc which includes the required .NET Framework 1.1, TV Centre Pro 4.9.1 requires .NET Framework 2.0 which isn't bundled with the download. You don't discover this until installation is complete and the settings console tries to load, or you try and run the newly installed application. If you don't have .NET Framework 2.0 your only option is to uninstall and go back to the previous version which involves setting all the software, settings and channels back up again.

.NET Framework Initialization Error.

Conclusion:

When installing you are shown a picture of a "well off family" in their big flash living room (minus the speech bubble!), with their big flash TV, with the MediaCentre up on the screen. I don't think that family would put up with the glitches and annoyances in this product. It gives me a sense that it is unfinished and I want these issues sorted out. Admittedly this is a complex piece of kit, but I put up with Hauppauge's glitches for 8 years, now I want to see Pinnacle get this TV card right.

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