Pinnacle Studio MovieBox Deluxe 9.0 [USB 2.0] review:5 stars (This video capture / editing unit is great !!) - Being on a fairly tight budget, I researched the @�% out of the various video capture / editing products that are "out there". I visited just about every website on the net that offers reviews on these products. Do I choose a system that uses an internal card, or not? What about the editing program that is bundled with the internal / external capture device? (We have several shoeboxes of 8mm video of our kids that we want to convert to digital, edit, then burn to dvd)

The Pinnacle Studio 9 Moviebox (USB) system appealed to me because we have 3 computers on a wireless network (teenagers, you know!) and this machine would be portable, and could easily be moved from computer to computer. Then, I began to read the reviews people had posted re: the Pinnacle Studio 9 Moviebox ...
... so many said it was "trash" ... etc. ... but some said it was "great, and worked well". My local computer store had them on sale for about $ 70 (U.S.) with a 30 day return policy. How could I go wrong ?

I've used it for about 3 weeks now, and made several DVD's. The video capture is superb ... very fast. The layout is also really good. Everything you need is at your fingertips ... just click & drag, click & drag ... I did all of this on a PC that doesn't have a dedicated video card, I might add. Yes, it was slower. I had to wait a few seconds each time I did something so my PC could catch up ... but what do you expect? It never once crashed or froze, and the DVD's burned perfectly. The end result looked great and impressed my kids ... titles, fades in/out, music, voiceover ... and I'm just getting into it.

When my budget can handle it, I'm going to install a graphics card (probably an ATI Radeon 9600XT 256mb) and an Audigy 2 sound card. That will obviously speed things up and take the load off my integrated video/sound motherboard. (Forgot to mention, the PC I've been using is an HP Pavilion a420n ... AMD Athlon 3000+
(2.16 Ghz), 512 mb ram, and a 160 GB hard drive)

Summary: Pinnacle Studio 9 Moviebox (USB) is a really good system and I just don't understand why some people "trashed" it in their reviews on other websites. Truth be known, you'll like this system. It works very well & has all the features you'd ever want. It does not (repeat, not) "crash your computer". It does not (repeat, not) "freeze after 16 frames" (there's a patch to download from Pinnacles website ... it takes all of 20 seconds to dl it, and it deals effectively with that complaint). I like this product and I am very happy I bought it. 5 stars (Quite Satisfied) - I have some VCR tapes that I wanted to copy, edit and burn to DVD. I contacted Dell Computers to seek their advice on what I should purchase to accomplish this task. They recommended the Pinnacle MovieBox 9.0-USB. I naturally went to Amazon to read reviews. Needless to say, the reviews were pretty bad. But, the one thing that I kept reading was that people with machine configurations slightly better than minimum requirements were having problems. Since I just purchased a new computer from Dell (Dimension 8400, 3.4GHz, 1GB RAM, 160 GB HD), I assumed that I my configurations were more than adequate to accomplish the task. I purchased the Pinnacle MovieBox Deluxe 9.0-USB.

After receiving the moviebox and software, I couldn't be more pleased. This hardware/software performs exactly as described and I couldn't be happier. I was able to capture my VCR tapes flawlessly, edit like a professional and burn to DVD without any problems.1 stars (review of reviews) - I was seriously thinking of getting this product, but there are so many bad reviews about Pinnacle products, and especially their customer tech service I have second thoughts. Here I see several bad reviews from all over the country, suddenly followed by a "great" professionally sounding review from CA from "A Reader". Pinnacle is located in Mountain View CA. Who do you believe??
Pinnacle Studio MovieBox Deluxe 9.0 [USB 2.0] Features:
Extension Cable (Cables)
Accessories (Accessory)
Video
Hardware Bundles
Editing
Computer software (programs)
Graphics
3D (3-D)
Animation (Animated)
Graphics (Graphic)
Multimedia
Professional Design
desktop publishing
desk top publishing
Image Capture Capturing
CD
Image Filters - Create exciting video effects, such as Old Time Movie, Ripples, Lens Flares and more
Home Cinema support - Capture, edit and output 16 x 9 widescreen video, and create surround sound soundtracks
Automated editing - Let SmartMovie edit your movie for you
Fix poorly shot footage using Studio's new cleaning and restoration tools
Audio Filters - Apply professional-level effects such as Reverb, Graphic EQ and normalize

Pinnacle Studio MovieBox Deluxe 9.0 [USB 2.0] is the CD-ROM version. The full version can be purchased by clicking on the "CLICK HERE TO ORDER" button below for around 179.99USD.