OTA HDTV on a Netbook
I just figured out how to setup my Pinnacle HDTV Pro stick (801e) on my HP Mini Netbook (1010NR) to watch live TV in Windows 7 Media Center. It’s pretty simple, but there is a catch. There is not enough storage on the SSD to store the live TV buffer (needs 6 gigs minimum) so you’ll have to direct it elsewhere via a registry edit (Don’t do this if you don’t know how!). I am having the netbook put temporary TV files on an 8gig SD card which is working fine.
Step one – Plug in the USB tuner (I had to use the port by the power plug, the other port said it was USB 1 (new to me)).
Step two – Let windows find and install drivers automatically
Step three – Configure the tuner card in Media Center – DO NOT WATCH TV YET!
Step four – Redirect Live TV Buffer and Recorded TV folders to the SD card.
Edit these values in the registry:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\MediaCenter\Service\Recording
LastRecordPathSet (Modified to D:\)
RecordPath (Modified to D:\)
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\MediaCenter\Service\Video\
Tuners\DVR\IO\Writer
DVRDirectory (Modified to D:\)
It worked for me. Not sure how much I’ll use it, but it’s nice to know it works.
(For those of you following the RSS feed: Sorry for the duplicate post; I hit publish a bit too quickly!)
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Category: Gadget, Review, Windows Media Center
I would be interested in your opinion of this tuner vs. the Hauppauge and AVERMedia. I have a Hauppauge 1600 in my Win7 box and the AVER in my VistaMCE. The AVER outperforms the Hauppauge by a long shot. Even when the HPG was in my Vista box. I have a refurb pinnacle HD stick but have not tried it yet for comparison.
I guess I would say that the Hauppauge performed terribly until I updated the drivers from the manufacturer website. The Pinnacle stick works very well also, but keep in mind that it does not have hardware encoding, so your processor will be working harder. With a powerful machine, both work flawlessly.