Pinnacle Studio Moviebox Ultimate V12 [OLD VERSION]

WOrks well with windows 10

Just plug your VHS machine into the moviebox, and the moviebox into a USB-port on your computer. Then play the tape and push "record" on your screen. The resulting recording format is MPG or AVI, but you can convert this into many popular formats, including MP4 and DVD. You can edit the recorded files according to your wish. The only drawback is that it takes some time to convert the recorded files into other formats, and that it also takes a little time to learn the software. Conversion into other formats can be done overnight, and the software even can shut down your computer down after having finished the job. The resulting quality is very good indeed. If you use the best quality, a MP4-file takes about one GB per 30 minutes. But it may be overkilling to use the highest quality for old VHS-tapes. I have not tried out the optimal quality level yet. This combination of hardware and software really works! Previously, I have tried a simpler video capturing device. With that, the picure and the sound got unsynchronized, and the lines in the upper part of the picture got unstable. Not so here. Previous versions of Pinnacle Studio may have had a tendency to crash, but I havn't experienced this (yet!). After having installed the software, you can also upgrade to an updated version (v. 12.1) from Pinnacle's website.

I bought the Pinnacle Studio Moviebox about 6 months ago to transfer my video from an older Sony videocamera that still used 8mm tapes. The set up and cables were easy to use. I did encounter the green screen as many others have complained about. However, after restarting the my computer and/or removing and re-attaching the cables, the green screen was gone and my video was being captured. My main gripe with this product was that during the capturing of the video from my Sony videocamera was that several frames are dropped during the process. I would say over a thousand frames were dropped which made my overall video jumpy as several frames were skipped. Maybe I am being too kind, but I attribute this to my video camera and the transfer of 8mm tapes. I believe using a better videocamera with direct transfer through the Pinnacle Studio Moviebox would result in less dropped frames. I love all the options and transitions that one can make while making the video. There are several features that I still have not tried. Overall, I am satisfied with the Moviebox, but you do have to be patient. You cannot expect to make a home movie very quickly, at least not if you want it to look great and transition smoothly from scene to scene. I researched a lot of video transfer products before I purchased this one and this Pinnacle Studio Ultimate V12 was the best on the market. If someone knows of a better product on the market, please let me know.

If your goal is to edit home videos, this piece of gear will do the trick. I have not yet used the hardware, since I was able to directly transfer recordings from the firewire camera onto the computer, but I am assuming that the resulting quality when digitizing analog video will not suffer much. My review will then focus on the bundled software. The video editing software is OK for most purposes. It will allow users to create pretty decent videos in no time, and deliver them in a variety of formats that range from DVDs to website-ready videos. It is not professional software by any means, and lacks the precision and workflows found in more expensive video editing programs, but the market targeted by this solution will not miss any of that. The software is very complete, since it even includes some additional media users might find useful when creating their videos, such as images, backgrounds, and sounds. The manual is very thorough and well written, clearly aiming to a non-professional crowd, so things are pretty clear there. They even bothered including a small "how-to-shot-decent-videos" section that has nothing to do with the software itself, but that those with little video production experience can find interesting and useful, if they want their loved ones to watch their amazing blockbusters more than once without falling asleep... In all, it's a pretty good product, and for the price, I doubt there's anything like it out there. There are a few flaws, of course... some workflows with the software (DVD chapter creations and navigation, in particular) are very quirky and fight against the user. The bundled green screen... well, take it as a gift, since you can't really expect anything else at this price point. And the production process at creating web-ready videos is pretty general and a bit restricted. Those who aim at producing lots of videos targeting the web (particularly for a few well-known video websites) should probably get a software specially designed for that (such as Techsmith's Camtasia) to compliment this package. I definitely recommend this product for those aiming at producing home videos with the intention of sharing them with others.

Everyone said buy this product so I did. That was my first mistake. After buying it and trying to use it for video capture on my old vhs tapes the video would freeze up. So I thought it was because of the older system I was using(pentium 4,3GB memory,513mb video card, XP pro). So I went out and purchased a i7,12GB memory,1GB video card, vista ultimate 64bit machine. Well guess what happened; thats right on video capture it froze up again. I decided to go to the pinnacle forums which i should have done from the get go and found out this is and has been a pervasive problem with the pinnacle moviebox and video capture. Pinnacle support just tells you to reinstall drivers. which does nothing to help. I went out and spent $2000 to find out they are selling defective equipment and no support. DON'T BUY THIS GARBAGE YOU WILL REGRET IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!