A New Use for that Pinnacle DC10+ Card

[Shannafey]

Some of you might have figured this out already, but I had an epiphany over the weekend, and realized you can use the Pinnacle DC10+ card as a cheap TBC to eliminate macrovision or color correct / adjust brightness etc.

I bought a Samsung set top DVD recorder and realized that I would need to buy a macrovision defeater to transfer any of my pre-recorded VHS tapes that were protected, and on top of that, I have a bunch I taped off of cable, that are somehow fooling the Recorder into thinking that they are protected as well. This was bad news to me, since I bought the Set top to record masses of tapes and get rid of the original VHS tapes, for space and to keep them protected for prosperity. I didn't want to have to dump them all in the computer to make DVDs. This would defeat the purpose of buying that set top recorder. I knew that the DC10+ card doesn't have a problem disabling macrovision, so I started thinking, what if I loop the video signal through the card. You have to open the Pinnacle software and keep it running, but it worked great, and as I said, you can adjust color, brightness etc. with the built in controls in the Pinnacle software. I recorded my original (unmodified) letterboxed VHS tape of Star Wars last night and it looks great!!

I thought I'd share that bit of insight with all of you. That card was such a great investment at $100. I bought it 4 or 5 years ago and have loved it ever since!!

[Westcott]

What Pinnacle softeware do you have with that DC 10 card? AV 7?

[Shannafey]

I have had the card for years, as well as the Studio DV. I am using version 8 of Pinnacle's Studio software, though version 9.x is out now.