Pinnacle Studio Moviebox for tape conversion project?

[Msciszaro]

Hello everyone,
I'm new to the VHS world and overall not great with tech, so please bare with me. In all likelyhood, soon I'm going to end up with thousands of VHS tapes in my hands.. with aim, or rather task of digitising it all.

I would like to do it properly and make sure I can make the most of it in terms of quality. Here big thanks to people writing on this forum, lordsmurf in particular, for all the great information.
I was able to get one of the recommended models for PAL cassetes, so RTV Blaupunkt 966. I was able to get it to play on my TV and the picture and sound look great!

Now, since I'd like to work on it on my computer - another step is the capture card.
For now - I went with device mentioned in a title, so Pinnacle Studio Moviebox Version 9. I found it very cheap on a local auction site, so I went for it. I'm still yet to get it to work, as I'll need to set up Windows XP on my old computer, but it's not a major obstacle.

I was looking for cards that are recommended on the site, but They are very difficult to get in Europe. They are costly as it is - and the extra cost of shipment makes me a bit apprehensive. I already spent a lot of money on this project - and my budget is not unlimited...
Yet, if I can get much better results with something like ATI TV Wonder, I'm open to spending a bit more to get it.

Thus, the main question I have for the community is - does anyone have any experience with this Pinnacle Studio Moviebox (Version 9) device? What is your opinion on it? Will it give me respectable results, or - if I care about getting the best possible quality while digitising the tapes, should I look to get something of better quality?
Thank You.

[lordsmurf]

Welcome.

Yes, late reply, but I just saw it was unanswered.

No, that exact Pinnacle will not result in great results.

"ATI TV Wonder" is also a generic branding used for multiple ATI cards. Specifics matter.

With 100+ tapes, you do not want to screw around with the wrong card and/or a bad card.

Lots of business and individuals ship worldwide, there's no rule that you must buy local only. That's somewhat silly. I buy and sell worldwide all the time.

[Gary34]

The Pinnacle is a good card when you get the right one. With buying this gear you are either buying known generation and tested gear from the marketplace on this site or you are buying gear of an unknown generation from random sellers. You can’t get something from eBay or auctions and bring it here and figure out if it’s the right generation. You’re on your own when you buy from those places.

Some of the wrong generations of pinnacles don’t install well and you won’t know if you have the right generation or not. It’s a lot less of a headache to just buy from the marketplace on this site with the pinnacles IMO. If you have to trouble shoot not knowing if you have the right generation gets to be a problem. You aren’t really saving anything you just don’t know it yet.

That goes for other gear too. The manufacturers made changes to the gear that you can’t see from the outside so there are multiple generations all of most all of this gear. Then with the Datavideo DVKs LS sells they are modded and preset.

[Msciszaro]

Hello to both,
Thanks for taking time to reply.

After all - I sold this Pinnacle card, after struggling with getting Windows XP set up. Was just too much hassle. I settled on Hauppauge capture card and using my Blaupunkt with it - with AmarecTV and Lagarith codec, I've been very happy with the results.
Unfortunetely, after only some 50 tapes - my VCR is showing some signs of "wear and tear" and I might need another one...

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Msciszaro

After all - I sold this Pinnacle card, after struggling with getting Windows XP set up. Was just too much hassle.

You were trying to use a non-suggested Pinnacle, the ancient flat square pancake. What you need was a certain version of the beetle. WinXP is not required for the best Pinnacle, and it works great on Win11, and in VirtualDub.

Quote:

I settled on Hauppauge capture card and using my Blaupunkt with it - with AmarecTV and Lagarith codec, I've been very happy with the results.

Quality can get much better still.

Be careful about Lagarith. It's never been suggested for capturing, only post-capture. The reason is because it has byte order issues that can corrupt captures and encodes.

Quote:

Unfortunetely, after only some 50 tapes - my VCR is showing some signs of "wear and tear" and I might need another one...

Where did you acquire that current VCR? You're obviously PAL, so VCRshop is the go-to.

I see you lack any frame TBC, too. That's not good.

[Msciszaro]

Thanks a lot, sir. I read it yesterday, but was too tired to respond.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Where did you acquire that current VCR? You're obviously PAL, so VCRshop is the go-to.

I see you lack any frame TBC, too. That's not good.

I bought it off a local market. I know You recommended using VCR shop and warned against e-bay and such, but I could not afford it at a time. Buying similar rate machine meant spending probably 5 time as much. Mine required some work, but I was lucky enough to find someone over here who was repairing Blaupunkt and similar machines for decades and He fixed it up for me. Only now it's giving me some issues again.
I'm thinking about buying my next one from VCR shop indeed... if that can guarantee it working well for couple years at well, I'm willing to do it (It's a large cost for me).. I'm just not sure there are any guarantees in the VCR field.

As for TBC - Blaupunkt 966 is on Your recommended list (Panasonic NV-HS1000 rebadge). It has TBC - unless I misunderstand and "frame TBC" is yet another, different thing/function?

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

You were trying to use a non-suggested Pinnacle, the ancient flat square pancake. What you need was a certain version of the beetle. WinXP is not required for the best Pinnacle, and it works great on Win11, and in VirtualDub.


Quality can get much better still.

Be careful about Lagarith. It's never been suggested for capturing, only post-capture. The reason is because it has byte order issues that can corrupt captures and encodes.

Yes, I went a cheap route - since I got it for pennies it didn't really hurt and I resold it afterwards.

After that - I struggled to work it all out and I found someone else who was willing to guide me through it and I tried to emulate his set-up. Like I said, I'm overall very happy with the results - although I understand You are a perfectionist.

Thanks on the warning about Lagarith. I'm going to switch to HuffYuv then!