Bargain Alert


Last week, I bought a cheesy Pinnacle USB2 TV-in device. I really only wanted it for composite video in from a PlayStation2; the fact it had an aerial socket for analogue terrestrial TV wasn’t a factor in the purchase at all. In fact the main purchase factor was that it was in stock at a local PC World and that it only cost £34.99—much cheaper than the nearest Hauppauge kit.

So I take it home, plug it into one of my Dell laptops, and yay: the TV-in works. Now to make the composite video work … hmm, where’s the software options to enable it? Why does the clunky media centre-like software say “can’t change channel” when I press AV on the remote? I was becoming more and more worried about this purchase. Eventually, I searched the Pinnacle support forums and found a post which absolutely floored me.

In the readme file on the installation cd this is mentioned.

7.00 Known limitations
Composite and S-video are not currently supported.

How do you like dem apples? Two ports, which are clearly visible on the actual hardware through a clear pane in the retail box, just don’t work. Not even the manufacturer knows how to make them work. I was back in PC World like a shot looking for a refund, which to their credit they happily gave me.

Wandering around the store, I saw some cheap and cheerful PlayStation2 games. Lurking amongst the chaff was a beaten up copy of Twisted Metal Black with a bundled Network Adapter. Now this is something I’ve been looking for for an age—a search which has sped up now that I’ll have a copy of Pro Evolution Soccer 5 within the next couple of weeks. The RRP of this bundle pack is £39.99, which the PC World “reduced price” sticker reminded me of. The reduced price was £12.97. Yoink, mine!

When it was rung through the till, it came up with a price of £7.97. Bonus! Saved myself £28.02, which is not too shabby at all. On opening it at home, it was in mint condition: Network Adapter packaging untouched, plastic seal still around the enclosed game … PC World marked off 70% of the cost simply because the box was a bit tatty.

So the reason I’m not wibbling and ranting like I usually do was that my returning the gash USB TV card got me a piece of console gadgetry that I’ve been hunting for at a cheap price for months. I’ve a bit more respect for PC World now, even if just that whoever prices up some of their “used and abused” products just doesn’t have a clue :)

, , ,

2 responses to “Bargain Alert”

  1. Never buy anything Pinnacle. Their vinyl recording and VHS to disk packages are just as bad. Support is nonexistent. I’ve not seen hardware that bad since trying to get a Terratec card to work in the early days of NT4.