Dead Simple Video Transfer
by Brian Underdahl
There are times when we take a bit longer to test some of the products we receive here at Under: The Influence. Sometimes it’s a matter of being swamped with projects, but other times it’s because we have a semi-diabolical plot in mind. That is, some products simply deserve to be tested by our most critical testers. Sure, that sounds a little mean, but if a product survives that level of scrutiny you can be sure that it will work well for the ordinary user. I’m happy to say that the Pinnacle Video Transfer not only survived but it even earned the respect of our toughest tester.
Here are some excerpts of the tester’s notes:
- Excellent concept of recording w/o PC. The simplicity of use is the most attractive feature.
- Button labeling is not as clear as I’d like. Buttons are multifunction… the Mode button, beside choosing resolution, is also an ON/OFF button… similarly, Record button is both a Start and Stop button.
- Can’t make it work right out of the box… Got a red blinking light that I wasn’t sure what it meant. I recorded anyway. Nothing was recorded. Dug into manual, found that red blinking light means it didn’t connect to my portable USB drive.
- Ran a sample video recording with USB key. Wonderful result!
One correction on the previous notes: The 80GB USB drive I used last time was a Maxtor box. Yesterday, I tried the Western Digital USB box (250 GB). It worked great. The WD box was plugged in, and in a few seconds, the blue light on the Pinnacle box lit up, indicating that it’s ready to go. I recorded a few clips and verified that the they worked great. Additionally, I suspended the laptop (the unit that’s outputing SVideo to the Pinnacle box), and the recording actually terminated, and the file was properly closed. It can be played back later. I was impressed. I tried turning off the computer as well, and the file still closed correctly. Cool!!
By the way, I did an overnite recording and confirmed again that either WMP 10 or the DVD player in the laptop froze the playback after about 4 hours, even with the laptop cooler running. However, the positive side is that I got most of the disk recorded. And when the picture froze, the Pinnacle box smartly closed down the file.
So, as I mentioned at the beginning, our pickiest equipment tester ended up loving the Pinnacle Video Transfer (and didn’t want to give it back). Believe me, that’s an awfully big endorsement! If you have videos you want to transfer to a portable video player, that you want to save for viewing on a PC, or that you want to transfer to disc, it doesn’t get any easier. Just don’t loan out your unit until you’ve transferred everything–you might have trouble getting it back.
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