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Pinnacle 150 Review and Tips

We had a Dazzle 80 for converting video tape to MPEGs. That device worked well except that the transfer rate limited us to smaller, lower frame rate videos. We upgraded to the Dazzle 150 with a 'starter edition' version of Studio 8 Software. The Dazzle 150 will capture your video in 720x576 DVD resolution

The device works best with USB 2 but it is compatible with USB 1. It has an onboard chip to create MPEG-2 on the fly. The compression means that you will use a lot less storage for the raw video.

The software that is included is a ‘starter edition’ which is missing a few features. For example, the darkroom features will not work. For the most part, the starter edition will allow you to create some great videos.

We purchased a VCR that is dedicated to video editing. The Dazzle  150 comes with both RCA and S-Video cables. Our system has USB 2 so we were able to exploit the full capabilities of the device.

We found the titling interface to be a little cumbersome. 

Adding transitions is as simple as selecting the transition you want and dropping it into the storyboard.

Video editing requires a fast hard drive and a lot of space. Five minutes of video at high resolution will take about a half gig of storage space. Unless you have a super fast PC, Lots of Ram and a super fast video card, creating the DVD will take some time. For us this isn't a problem. We simply start the creation process when we won't be using the machine for an hour or so.

Tips

• It might be a good idea to reboot your machine prior to doing any editing.

• Try to defrag your machine occasionally.

• When we initially recorded our videos, we found that the pictures were a little jerky. The situation was corrected by changing the data rate to 12,0000

• Plan on purchasing an external hard drive or a lot of DVDs to burn the data.

• If you are creating DVDs of home movies, consider using the titling features to list who is in the upcoming scenes. This doesn't detract from the video in our opinion and will have heirloom value for your children and grandchildren. They won't be asking questions like "Is that great grandma or aunt heather in the picture?"

Last modified:  11/10/06