The Pinnacle Instant DVD Recorder is a DVD-recording device that serves as a pass-through between your VCR, camcorder, digital cable box or DVR and your personal computer. Once linked to a playback device, the Pinnacle Instant DVD Recorder can convert the analog video into digital, allowing your computer's DVD-burning drive to burn the footage directly onto blank DVD. This makes it possible to record directly from your TV or from old video tapes without the footage being stored on your computer.
What's In the Pinnacle System?
The Pinnacle Instant DVD Recorder comes with the video capturing device that links your playback unit, such as VCR or DVR, to your computer and Pinnacle Studio MediaSuite, which is a video-editing software. The capturing device has built-in filtering technology, which can help remove the hissing noises that tend to plague older VHS tapes.
Burn Straight to DVD
There are a couple of possible ways to use the Pinnacle software. The first is a one-button process that works well if you need to capture an entire video or television show without any editing of the footage. To burn straight to disc, click on the "Direct-to-Disc" button. When you choose this option, the video will pass through the Pinnacle capture device and burn to DVD, using the DVD drive in your computer. No video will be saved to your computer's hard drive and you will not be able to make any changes to the footage, such as adding titles or menus. Instead, the "Direct-to-Disc" feature will add menus to the disc for you and create chapters by using an auto-detection feature to split up the scenes.
Edit the Video
When using the Pinnacle Instant DVD Recorder, it is also possible to do some editing of your video footage. Possible edits include adding titles and menus or rearranging the order of the footage that you want to burn. In order to make edits to the footage captured using the Pinnacle system, use the "SmartMovie" wizard. The wizard will walk your step-by-step through the process of adding additional features to your footage.
How Long Does Pinnacle Take?
Since the Pinnacle process works all at one time and begins to burn your footage while it is capturing, a DVD can be burned with the Pinnacle Instant DVD Recorder in only fifteen minutes, though, depending on the length of your footage, the process could take up to an hour. This makes it a faster process than other methods of capturing video footage and burning to DVD.
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