Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick

The Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick gives users the ability to receive HD broadcasts over the air and display them on their computer screens.  The end product of the Pro Stick is beautiful and the set-up is fairly easy. Along the way, however,  there are two important issues that appear to have been skipped by the Pinnacle company when working on their user designs.

The first is the remote.  It seems like they took all the HCI research that has been done with remotes over the years and chose to do the opposite.  The remote is small, but thick.  The buttons are closely squeezed together, and the labels are sometimes hard to understand.  Here is a sample picture:

The remote is a concern because my wife and I lay down in front of the computer at times for TV entertainment.  After using the remote for a little bit, it was quickly realized you have to be very careful pressing the right button.  It is very easy to click another button than the intended one.  If the lights are out, using the remote is impossible.

The second issue is that sometimes using the remote causes Windows Media Center to start.  The only way to correct the problem is to get up, close Windows Media Center, and hope it doesn't happen again during the current session.  We have found ourselves now completely unhooking the HD receiver and only using it when something is much preferred to be in HD (i.e. Sports or Awards Shows).

Solutions would be to scrap the remote control or allow for universal remote connectivity and making sure the remotes don't affect existing programs on the computer.