Solutions for Capturing Video

Recently at my job I have had a string of people coming by asking for a DVD to edit media solution. There are a lot of students that use Mini DV tapes to record things, then have the tapes transferred to a DVD. The problem is that they reuse the DV tapes. At the end of the semester they have to put together a final DVD of all of their tapes. Therein lies the problem; how can you rip from a DVD into an editable format? While there are a myriad of long solutions (DVDx, handbrake etc., Pinnacle Media Systems has come up with a couple of great solutions that are worth the investment.




First we have the Pinnacle Media Dazzle ($49.99). Basically it is a USB compatible video input. You can take any composite (RCA) video and audio source and you can capture it to your computer. It requires a computer (PC or MAC compatible) and comes with very easy t0o use software.







Personally I prefer the Pinnacle Video Transfer ($100). This item is stand alone, so you don’t need a computer. All you have to do is plug in any composite video and audio source, then plug in your storage device. It can be any USB compatible storage! You can literally record a video onto your flash drive or a portable hard drive. It records into MPEG-4 so you can edit it as well. You can also record directly to an IPod or a PSP.



Both of these items are very good for capturing video off of you gaming system for posting/editing, and are VERY simple to use (they literally define the term plug and play). I would definitely recommend either if you are in the market for something to transfer video from VHS tapes, damaged DVDs, TV shows, or Gaming systems.