TV on a PC's certainly nothing new, but Pinnacle's PCTV USB stick is aimed squarely at TV on the move - plug this little gadget into your laptop for digital TV and radio anywhere. At least that's what is says on the box. How does it work in practice? Inside the little package (and yes, it's one of those plastic cases designed never to be opened), you'll find an aerial, remote and USB stick. Dig a little deeper and you'll also find an installation CD and instructions. The instructions couldn't be simpler: plug in the ariel, insert the USB stick into a port and install the software on the CD...

Installation
The CD contains all the drivers and software you'll need and installation is automatic once the CD is loaded. Once installed, you'll need to reboot your laptop. After reboot Pinnacle Media Center will load and you'll need to configure a few options: choose your country and the scan mode (Quick, Normal and Best Quality). I'm a quality freak so chose the last option! There's also tick boxes for "Allow Scrambled channels", and "Signal amplifier". I'm not sure what the advantage of allowing scrambled channels would be, in fact this would just act as a tease as you'd be unable to view the channels through a PC.

Next you'll choose the available services which are Internet Radio Stations and DVB-T USB Stick digital, before finally starting to scan for channels. The software scans through to search for all available radio stations, then TV channels. A progress bar is displayed on screen, and it does take longer than I'd anticipated running through all the channels available. Once done, clicking finish will close the application (it would have been nice if ending this started the Pinnacle TVCenter).

Channels are changed via either the supplied remote control or via the onscreen controls. In fact all functions are available through the remote from switching to full screen to controlling the sound and recording. What's rather frustrating is this only works when the TV window is active, and therefore only really useable in full screen mode. As with all digital TVs, switching channels can be on the slow side.The quality of the picture is excellent as expected. This is after all digital TV! I also didn't notice a sound-synching issue which plague some less expensive digital tuners on the market.

The electronic programme guide (EPG) isn't available by default, and must be activated within the MediaCenter Settings (again, it would have been nice to have seen better integration between the TVCenter here as you must close this to open up the Settings!) To do this, click on services, then click on enables EPG data services. This will then enable TV listings with the TVcenter, which means you can automatically record TV programmes...

Timeshifting (recording)
The beauty of TV on a PC is the ability to record to disk, and with the EPG a PC becomes a complete media center. Using the EPG, you can schedule TV programmes to be recorded automatically, or you can alternatively simply click record as you would on a VCR. The USB stick is bundled with the ever popular DivX codec, but TV's recorded to MPEG by default.

This is the same format as broadcast and can be changed within the settings to reduce the amount of hard dive space used by recordings. The quality of the recordings is exactly what you see for live action, and recorded programmes can be played back within the mediacenter with a few button clicks. 

It's amazing to think Pinnacle managed to cram so much into such a tiny unit with no need for an external power supply. It wasn't long ago that digital tuners were half the size of a laptop and required their own power supply. I won't hold the iPod styling against it, but would certainly like the unit to be available in black as well as white (how many laptops apart from an iMac are white?). Although it's small, it’s slightly larger than a standard USB stick and therefore wobbles slightly when inserted in the laptop USB port. The magnetic base on the aerial is however a nice touch!  Overall, the Pinnacle PCTV USB stick is an ideal companion to any laptop, and the bundled software a breeze to use.