Pinnacle Studio MovieBox USB Review

A beautifully designed piece of hardware that the image here does not do full justice to, the Pinnacle Studio MovieBox USB is, as the name suggests, an external box that you just plug into a free USB port (preferably USB 2.0).

Connect a Hi8, VHS, SVHS or DV source and the Studio MovieBox features an easy capture facility to capture the complete tape - or just a scene of your choice - automatically compressing the video to save on hard disk space. Once you've saved your clips you can edit them with the copy of Pinnacle Studio 8 included and  export them to your camcorder of a VHS tape or CD/DVD. 

A simple product, easy to setup and use, but not universally liked. Apart from the limited features you would expect at this price point there have been reports of freezing, video being out of synch with audio and other problems.

Technical Specifications:

Moviebox USB Inputs: 
Composite Video input (RCA connector) 
S-Video input (mini-DIN connector) 
Stereo Audio input (2 x RCA connector) 
USB 2.0 or USB1.1 

MovieBox USB Outputs: 
Composite Video output (RCA connector) 
S-Video output (mini-DIN connector) 
Stereo Audio output (2 x RCA connector) 

MovieBox USB Video Capture Formats: 
MPEG2 (720x576,480x576 PAL,SECAM 25fps), 
MPEG2 Data rate 1-12Mbit/s for USB2 (USB1: 6Mbit/s) 
MPEG1 352x288 (PAL, SECAM, 25fps), 
MPEG1 Data rate 1.15 -3Mbit/s. 

Other Reviews:

PC Mag

itreviews

ZDNet

Get full details on the Pinnacle Studio MovieBox from Pinnacle's site or download pdf