Pinnacle PCTV - How to use

[Gayle]

I have just purchased Pinnacle PCTV because I was told I could use it to transfer my Sharp view cam 8 mm tapes onto CD as well as put my floppy disks that contain photos onto CD as well. It did not come with instuctions so I am at a loss how to use it. I have tried but when I push the record botton, it records blank. I don't even know if I have it connected right. I was told to plug the lead into the mic jack into the computer. Is there a better program that is easy to understand and use to transfer my 8 mm tapes onto a CD, one that can be played on a stand alone DVD player? Or is Pinnacle PCTV ok if I can learn how to use it?

[Akai Rounin]

Pinnacle Paradigm...

Stop by the Pinnacle website (http://www.pinnaclesys.com/) to find specifics on how to use the included software.

If you are in the US and are using WinXP, you may have to use a sort of "back door" to download the latest version of the PCTV Vision software. It is called PCTV 5.x and was originally conceived for the European market to support PAL and SECAM. But a 5.1 patch was released later to support NTSC as well. You should find and download two files for use with WinXP:

31.8 MB - pctvrave_501_webinstall.exe

and

2.18 MB - PCTVUpdate510.exe

They both should be available at this FTP server:

ftp://ftp.pinnaclesys.de/driver/pc/pctv/

Be warned, the server can be gawdawful slow sometimes.

HUN-YA!

Akai Rounin

[akbor75]

you should not mix up hardware and software.
to make a vcd from pictures has nothing to do with the hardware, so any software which supports that should work fine.

the camera has to be connected right.
never use the mic, always line in.
i don't know for sure, but i think you have a composite output on your camera. connect that with the composite input of the tv card. also connect the line out of the camera to the line in of your pc.
select composite and line in as input and the capture should work fine.

tip: use uiVCR if the pinnacle software doesn't work.

ronald

[Gayle]

Thanks akbar75,
I do have a composite output on my camera. I have done what you suggested and it works fine except for one thing- no audio! It records the movie good and I can burn to a CDR but no sound at all. The problem I think I have is to do with the fact that there is only one output jack on my camera which takes a cable with one only point plug and the other end of the cable has the yellow, red and white plugs. So where do I plug it into the computer for sound?? The yellow is pluged into the composite input of the TV card, but the red or white plugs do not fit into anything else into the computer. Help!!!

[Hong Kong Phooey]

You need to plug your sound cable into the line-in port of your Soundcard. The PCTV card itself does not have a line-in to record the sound.
I think the PCTV card,(as opposed to the PCTV pro),can only record sound in mono,rather than stereo,so you may need an adaptor to plug both channels (red & white),into the line-in port of your soundcard.