Digital Home Thoughts: Pinnacle Video Transfer: Almost A Useful Product

I first saw the Pinnacle Video Transfer at CES 2008, and I was immediately impressed by the product. A small, dedicated hardware-based h.264 video encoder with simple input and output? Sounds like a winner, right? It could have been, but it's missing a critical component. Let's start with what it can do, then get to what it can't do. It has inputs on one side: composite video and stereo audio. So right there we're talking about bottom-end input quality. But for most people, that falls into the "good enough" category, so it's not a huge problem. On the other end there's a USB 2.0 port that you connect a hard drive or USB Flash drive to. Even an iPod will work! The big button in the middle? You press the Mode part of the button to cycle through the quality modes: Good (320 x 240, 768 kbps h.264 video, 64 kbps audio), Better (640 x 480, 1.2 mbps h.264 video, 128 kbps audio), and Best (720 x 480, 1.5 h.264 mbps video, 192 kbps audio). When you want to start recording the video, you press the REC (record) part of the button. When you want to stop recording, you press it again. When it's finished writing the file to your storage device, it stops blinking. Simple, minimalist design. Sounds brilliant, right? Nope.

The way in which this product fails is quite epic: there's no way to see the video source you're playing back. That's right, the Pinnacle Video Transfer lacks any form of video output. No DVI, no VGA, not even a measly little composite video output. Pinnacle touts "one-touch start/stop recording from any video source including a TV, DVD player, PVR, camcorder, set-top box or gaming console", but they fail to explain that you'll need to have a TV connected that will output the signal for you over composite video and audio. When I first set up my test, using a combo VHS/DVD deck, I thought I was missing something. I re-examined the Pinnacle Video Transfer, looked through the small instruction manual, and even watched the included tutorial DVD (which was quite good). Most VHS decks only have one output, or if they have multiple outputs, they'll only output to one connection at a time. On my Samsung VHS/DVD deck, I connected the Pinnacle Video Transfer to the one and only component output. I pressed play on the VHS deck, waited a few seconds, then pressed record on the Pinnacle Video Transfer.

It's completely bizarre to expect consumers to capture video "blind" - without some way of allowing the user to see their video source and queue up the right start and stop points. Pinnacle uses a portable DVD player as an example - it has a built-in monitor, so the product makes sense in that one instance. But if you've got a DVD, why not just rip it? If this product is targeted at people with portable DVD players who lack he knowledge of how to rip a DVD, that can't be a very big market. If I wanted to crawl in behind my home theatre setup, I might have had better luck finding a way to route the signal out of my TV into the Pinnacle Video Transfer, but I don't have a VHS deck set up there.

Let's get back to my blind test for a minute: I used a 4 GB flash drive to record VHS movie onto, and when I was finished I connected the Flash drive to my computer. The 2 hour 16 minute movie, recorded on the Best quality setting (720 x 480 h.264, 1.5 mbps), was 1.5 GB in size. Opening the file using VLC Media Player, I thought the quality looked surprisingly good - until I saw someone move. It turns out that in Best quality mode, the recorded video is interlaced. Interlaced video looks quite horrible, and even if you're using an application that happens to de-interlace video (VLC does) it never does a very good job. The only way to de-interlace the file permanently is to open it in a video editing program and re-save it out again - compressing an already highly compressed video format. I think this is unacceptable, so the only option is to capture in Better quality mode, which limits you to 640 x 480 and 1.2 mbps. A plus is that the Pinnacle Video Transfer seems to ignore the old Macrovision protection, so if you've got an old VHS movie you want to keep but can't find it on DVD, you can record it using this product...but because you can't see it to queue up the start and stop points, you'll end up with a bunch of junk before and after that you won't want.

Ultimately this is a clever product crippled by a bone-headed limitation of not providing the user any way to actually see what it is they're doing. If there's a v.2.0 of this product, it needs to either have some form of video/audio output (VGA, DVI, Displayport, etc.) or a small built-in LCD display. Without one of those two things, this product is only useful in a tiny number of scenarios. If I had an "Epic Fail" award, the Pinnacle Video Transfer would have won it.

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys photography, mobile devices, blogging, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He wonders why some companies release such stupid products.

Do you enjoy using new hardware, software and accessories, then sharing your experience with others? Then join us on the Thoughts Media Review Team! We're looking for individuals who find it fun to test new gear and give their honest opinions about the experience. It's a volunteer role with some great perks. Interested? Then click here for more information.