My goal was to convert my ancient Hi-8 video collection of the 20th century
into the 'digital safety' of a 21st century hard drive. This needs to be done before
either the tapes of the players stop working, which is probably sooner
rather than later. The quality of the Hi-8 tapes isn't great, so it doesn't
make sense to buy a professional-grade converter. Storing on DVD's doesn't
make sense either, given the low cots of hard-drive space and the limited
life of DVD's (less than 20 years).

I purchased this cheap device with low expectations. Given the mixed
reviews, I fully expected to return it. I was hoping that this would
be an adequate cost-effective solution.

And it isn't too bad: I'm not returning it.
The video quality is adequate enough to convert old home movies
without significant degradation. There are the usual motion-related
conversion issues, and rapid movements get some interlacing 'needles'.
But its perfectly adequate for home videos.

Operation is simple: just plug in an USB stick, wait until all lights
go blue and hit record. The files transferred easily into Imovie on a Mac.
It also had no problems dealing with PAL, NTSC, from camcorders as
well as old VHS players. So, this is a decent device, but not without flaws...

Transferring videos is a tremendously tedious and time consuming task,
no matter what kind of converter device is used. Serious time
is spent in finding the right tapes, winding to the right position
and hitting record at the right moment. And then you wait endlessly
until the tape has played.

A weak point of this Pinnacle is that it sometimes stops recording
spontaneously. This is likely because it lost sync due to a gap on the tape or simply
because the tape is a but scratchy. Its a probably a 'feature' to prevent
recording blue screens. So when I return after 30
minutes to check, there is a partial recording. I unplug
the usb stick, run to the computer, load the partial recording to
find where it dropped off. Then back to the video to try to find
that location and resume from there. Since this happens frequently
(especially with rusty old tapes) this requires a lot of patience and
time, neither of which I am blessed with in abundance. The crappy
user interface of the pinnacle (just some led lights) only increases
the frustration level.

Overall, this is a decent device for the price. It does the job in converting
videos, but it will require a bit of patience to get it done.

I had been looking for a device that allowed me to lift mostly TV from my DVR (Tivo) and transport it to my computer for editing or upload to YouTUBE. I discovered the Pinnacle Video Transfer and life has been a breeze. With the simple press of a button I can select what quality I want to record (good, better, best), & start / stop the device. Then once the unit has finalized the recording (a minute or so depending on length) you remove the thumb drive /flash stick and can immediately upload the .mp4 to YouTUBE, iPod, PSP (Sony) or email it to friends. I found the quality of image surprisingly good. We back up vacation video using the portable USB 2.0 storage device for safe keeping. (Direct USB 2.0 output). INPUT is Composite, S-Video, left and right audio. (I use S-video for best picture.) If you're into gaming, you can record your action for later review or proof of win! Unit will record a minimum of :30 seconds and up to 11 hours on a 4GB flash stick at "good" quality for 320x240. (3 hours on "best" quality for 720 x 480.) A 30 GB iPod will hold 85 hours of video at "good" quality and 38 hours at "best" quality. A 250 GB Hard Drive will hold 640 hours at "good" quality and 187 hours at "best" quality. "Better" quality will add almost 1/2 additional more time up from "good".

Here is the website I found updates for unit:

[...]

The Pinnacle Video Transfer is a really great gift for someone who has a lot of video and wants to upload it right away. This unit works really well with Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 12 editing software and Pinnacle PCTV HD mini-stick, all of which I purchased. I found Pinnacle to be the most user friendly of electronic video products.

We've owned this product for about 4 months and absolutely love it. It wasn't always so, but now that the bugs are worked out, not only do I recommend it, I bought it as a gift for my parents for this coming Christmas.

Be aware that to make this little guy work well, forget the external hard drive and anything with cables that in our case created "fuzz" on the audio and some interference occasionally. Since switching to a high speed flash drive we have had not one single problem with interference. SanDisk SDCZ8-8192-A75 8 GB Cruzer Contour USB Drive (I recommend this one or the 16 GB version of the same thing.) Pinnacle also recommends copying the file to the pc before starting a second one. A good precaution to prevent overwriting something else.

We have recorded movies in the HD setting and they playback on our 50 inch tv as nicely as they played in the original format. We play the files back through our ps3, but there are other devices that will play media files as well such as some dvd player combos, etc. My husband also has put some of these files on his iphone and they are great to have for travel. This is also a great way to keep a digital file copy of your home videos, capture video from VHS before they start to die, or just to snag your favorite movie while it's playing on tv.

Overall, working out the issues we had at the beginning was not as easy as we hoped when reading the package and bringing it home. But in the end we use it all the time and are very glad we bought it.

I almost did not buy this Pinnacle device after reading all of the cautious and negative Amazon reviews on the Pinnacle Video Transfer. I ignored the negativity an bought one because I really wanted easy video IPOD recording. I now have used the Pinnacle Video Transfer for a little more than a week and I am very pleased.

I bought this device about two weeks ago because I own an 80GB IPOD and my IPOD hard disk was less than half full of videos despite the many hours I spent filling it. I wanted an easier way to get more fresh video. I primarily watch the IPOD on long airplane trips. I love the IPOD on these trips but I rarely used it otherwise. I go on a number of trips a year so I am always on the lookout for new content to put on my IPOD.

I wanted to record shows from Comcast digital cable that I subscribe to at home. I receive the video using a Comcast DVR set-top box. I bought the Pinnacle Video transfer to copy the video output of the DVR to my IPOD.

I specifically wanted to record shows that I have stored on the DVR. I also hoped I would get the ability to record many hours of television shows from one of the cable channels to my IPOD. I wanted a easy way to get lots of video into my IPOD and to then change it with new fresh video it the future.

I had expected that with the PINNACLE I would record video to a thumb drive and then I would have to use ITUNES to load my IPOD using my laptop. While this pc laptop method did work I learned that it would actually able to record video in an even easier way.

The Pinnacle is able to directly write into the IPOD hard drive using the white IPOD USB cable normally used . It actually updates the IPOD video directory so they you can use the normal IPOD interface to access the video in the movies folder on the IPOD.

I was surprised that the PINNACLE could direct write to the IPOD. It does saves me a lots of time and bother to not have to use ITUNES on the laptop. If you simply leave the Pinnacle and IPOD recording overnight the video stops recording after 5 hours and 51 minutes. Apparently this is the maximum time limit. It works just fine and plays back the video you recorded as long as it is 5 hours and 51 minutes or less. You can start a new recording of another file but you have be present to do that.

There is no way to do multi-file recording automatically. So when I fill my IPOD overnight, I only record 5:51 minutes of video but it is done while I sleep.


When I am overseas traveling I enjoy American television, and even reruns of television. Using this device I now can keep my IPOD full of fresh video and replace it with new video easily should I tire of the content. I really like it's ease of use.

The video quality is quite good and similar to all IPOD videos I have. When I record more important videos I use the Pinnacle best mode of 640x480 resolution (three blue LEDs on the Pinnacle) since this looks nice for it playing it back on my laptop (bigger screen). Otherwise I use the intermediate quality (two blue LEDS).

I had read some reviews about the lines and interlacing problems while playing back the Pinnnacle video on a laptop. I am using Nero showtime V9 software for video playback and it works well for playback and editing. The video looks great to my eyes. This video program is designed for high quality bluray playback on a laptop so that may explain while the videos looks good and some other software may look bad. I had the softe already because I have a Sony HD camcorder than creates AVCHD bluray video that I use with this same laptop. I had the previously purchased Nero player for use with Nero. Nero is a relatively inexpensive software easily purchased on the internet but it may be important for playing high resolution from the Pinnacle recorded video. Nero has Nero recode and other editing tools as well.

I had to write a review of my experiences since it appears to be quite different than some of the others. I only use the captured videos with my IPOD and laptop. I only record high quality digital video from my Comcast digital cable signal as made available on the back panel of the Comcast cable box. It works great and I am very happy.

I did have to learn to be patient after manually stopping the video recording process by pressing the Pinnacle record button. When you stop the recording manually in this manner the LED by the IPOD turns red warning you not to disconnect the IPOD for nearly 70 seconds after the stopping. It then turns blue telling you it is okay to remove the IPOD. Removing the IPOD too early causes the movie to not appear as a video file in the IPOD user interface for playback. Patience, is the key! Wait for the red light near the IPOD USB connector on the Pinnacle to turn blue. I now know that I must do that.

I love this device. So much video with so little work. I have added about 30 hours or reruns so far. I just let it run on a cable premium channel overnight.

This device is well designed, very simple to use, and it actually does what it is advertised to do (unlike too many products these days). It's great for transfering VHS tapes & DVD's to MPEG4 files. It will also capture TV shows and save those to MPEG4 files as well.
It can be used with either standard red, white, & yellow connectors OR an S-Video connector. I bought an expensive S-Video connector to see if it made a difference in the quality of the video capture. I didn't notice any difference, so my suggestion is to just use the standard red, white, & yellow connectors.