Home > Consumer Reviews > Pinnacle Studio MovieBox USB Video Transfer Device (210100251)

First of all, it works. As advertised.
I connected through USB 1.1 port. Captured a 30-minute
Lizzie McGuire for my kid, edited out commercials,
and made an SVCD. The video editing software is very nice,
intuitive, easy to use. All I can say is, "It works !"
The trouble is though, it takes so much time.
My machine is 2GHz P4 laptop with 1G memory.
First, it takes 30 minute to capture.
Then editing process.
Third, to create VCD. I found that creating VCD actually
takes twice as much time as capture, because it converts to
some file format and then to CD image, and then copying
the SVCD image to CD.
So to record 30 minute, I ended up spending 2 hours.
Not recommended for casual recording from TV, unless you
have patience and a lot of time.
Very good, if you have family video, which requires some
good editing and you are willing to patiently wait
(as a rule of thumb, multiply the original length by four
(that is, if you are recording 1 hour, it will take four hours).
But it works as advertised.

I am sorry but the reviewer below who said the latest version fixes "out of synch" problems is wrong. Please go to the maufacturer's (pinnacle) web forums. you will see hundreds of postings from users who complain that studio almost always causes synch problems, ESPECIALLY the latest version which is even worse than the last.

What does out of synch mean? It means most movies you create will have peoples lips moving and then the corresponding audio ten seconds or so later. This is NOT a problem with original captures or sources. I have a dozen different sources, direct from digital camera, direct from analog, etc, all of which are perfect as they play from my hard drive on media player or other programs without any synch problmes. it is studio that creates the out of synch (and I have a very very fast and advanced pc).

Worse yet the support is nill. nada, forgetaboutit. on pinnacle's web fourmus you will see users asking: "is anyone from pinnacle ever responding?" etc.

This product has a feature list that is good. but it will not work. I have now downloaded many many "beta's" and "fixes". it is as if all the purchasers of this product are essentially product testers for a product that doesn't work.

Don't take my word. go to their forums or any other dvd authoring forums, or even just google +pinnacle +audio +synch...you will se thousands of people complaining.

The latest recommendd fix is converting mpegs to avi's. too funny, you don't have to do this with any competing products and converting a 90 minute mpeg to avi creats about a 50 gigabyte file. yes, gigabyte.

This product has no number to call for the thousands (literally) of people who have experienced problems just capturing from their VCR to their computer. If you want to convert your old VHS movies into DVD, DO NOT BUY THIS. I am not the only person who thinks this; there are forums for this product on the Pinnacle website full of very angry people who have many problems, the most common of which is the audio and video being way out of sync. Hard to believe Pinnacle didn't test it for that problem before they sold it (and even worse if they did and sold it anyway). There's a very high probability that you will not be able to do what the product claims it can do.

If you plan to capture analog video at DVD quality, don't buy it! Don't waste your money! When you record a DVD the video and audio get out of sync. No support is given in their website, forums are full of complains and there are no answers from Pinnacle.

I do not understand why there are so many complants with this product. I used it with no problems at all. I even have it hooked up 16 feet away from my computer via a 16 foot 2.0 USB Cable. I had the box set up behind my TV with the output going into the box via S-VHS connect and RCA for sound. Then drilled a hole in my floor and ran the USB cable under my house and up into my computer. I recorded many times with NO droped frames. I recorded over a hour program without stoping and had no problems. Be aware this machine has to have a very fast computer. I believe this is where most of your problems come from. You HAVE to have a fast hard drive and processer. and at least 512 meg ram. I am running a P4 2.53ghz with 512 Ram and a western digital 7200 rpm 80 gig drive and using windows XP.
Only complaint I have is the time it takes to render the program for playback. I use mine as a PVR (Personal Video Recorder)
All I can say is works great for me! Love it!