Unstable capture using Pinnacle Studio Plus 9.4.3 and Movie Box

[cmcqxx]

I just installed Pinnacle Studio Plus 9.4.3 using MovieBox to capture via USB from an analog Sony Hi8 camcorder. I've got an Dell Inspiron E1505 w/ Intel Core 2 Duo and 1 GB RAM. Video is a 128MB ATI MOBILITY RADEON X1300 HyperMemory.

Everything connects and I get a preview window, but the video in the preview and that is captured is very jerky, with flashes of color throughout. It is very difficult to even see what is being captured. I've killed all other applications, tried every combination of AVI and MPEG capture at different qualities, made sure I had the latest version of 9.4.3, installed the latest DirectX, turned preview on and off, tried different tapes, changed resolution and colors on PC settings, lowered hardware acceleration - basically all the things I could think of and that were suggested by "tech support" and nothing helps. Any suggestions would be appreciated as I'd like to be able to move ahead. Thanks.

[edDV]

Probably a Moviebox issue. Best to go to the Pinnacle support forum and ask for help. Maybe there is a technique to get it to work.

The USB Moviebox is notorious as a poor performer. The Firewire model is a bit better but the good brands are Canopus (ADVC), AVS (Pyro) or Datavideo.

[cmcqxx]

I spent some more time experimenting today by hooking up the Movie Box to a different, older, slower laptop. Specs are Dell Latitude D800 1.7GHz Pentium w/ 512 MB memory w/ Windows XP and NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 display adapater. I installed the driver and just used Windows Movie Maker to see what the capture looked like, and it was fine. Unfortunately, that is my work laptop so I can't use it to do everything I want. It seems odd that my newer, faster laptop with more memory and much faster processor would have problems and my other one wouldn't. Any ideas? Are there adjustments I should make to the new laptop?

[cmcqxx]

I've posted to the Pinnacle site to see what I can find out there.

If it makes any difference, I've got the MovieBox Deluxe, which apparently is different from Movie Box USB. Any thoughts on that?

[crb303]

Bought studio moviebox plus, got no capture using new computer, fast processor, lots of memory. The s video port is too small by about half a thousandth, so my s video plug pulled apart when I tried to remove it. It is now destroyed.

Don't know about Nero, had pretty good luck with it earlier, but have had 2 pinnacle devices which didn't work. Dazzle and Moviebox.

May be some fixes and workarounds out there, but I always buy from a store that will take it back, like Circuit City, not like bestbuy, and if it won't work I take it back.

Sooner or later the manufacturers will catch on and publish software which works when you buy it.