Product Reviews

Inside Video Transfer's small box is a hardware-based video encoder that produces H.264 movies for use with iPods and other devices. It's a standalone device that converts analogue video, whether it's old video camera footage or output from a set-top box.

At the back of the box are S-Video and composite video inputs, along with left and right audio jacks. A combined cable for composite video and audio is provided, along with a Scart adapter - a real bonus if you use it to record from a set-top box where it's often the only output.

At the front of the unit is a type A USB port for connecting a recording device, and a presently unused type B port. Power is taken from the mains supply, some of which is passed to the type A port, keeping an iPod or other bus-powered device charged during recording. We were pleased that a 2.5in portable hard disk also received enough power to keep it running.

Big, bright lights next to each connector show their status. If no video signal is received or an incompatible output device is used, the corresponding light blinks red. When all is okay, lights remain solid blue and they turn solid red during recording.

This was intuitive enough to alert us to a problem with an external hard disk. Though the manual is specific about using a Fat file system, Video Transfer took issue with the disk's partition map, which had to be reset to Master Boot Record using Disk Utility. It's a very specific problem though, and one that will only

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affect Mac users repurposing old hard drives. There should be no such problems with USB-powered iPods, PSPs and card readers.

On top of the box is a circular control with two buttons - one labelled mode, the other to begin and end recording. The former cycles through three quality settings, with three lights shown for the highest one. Each uses a different data rate and pumps out different resolutions. Our VHS source retained its original resolution at the highest setting, dropping to 640 x 480 pixels and 320 x 240 pixels on the medium and low quality modes.

Given that we used the aged analogue format to test the device, the quality was already less than we're accustomed to and its lack of fidelity also posed a challenge for the encoder. We were pleased enough with the results for archiving home movies in a digital format, though our source tape was fairly clean. The hardware's status lights will indicate if there's a problem recording an unstable signal and it will continue recording when it becomes more stable again. The hardware doesn't deinterlace video, instead it relies on the intended playback hardware or software to do this.

Video Transfer is handy for archiving old family videos, especially if you lack the expertise or time to use an analogue-to-digital converter to capture and edit DV. That's a better solution if you want to edit and output to DVD, but Pinnacle's system is very easy to use. There's a potential problem with analogue cameras that record anamorphic video as there's no documented way to stretch the video back out to the correct aspect ratio, but it's not an issue for older cameras that only record letterboxed video.

Once you've digitised old VHS and Hi-8 tapes, however, Video Transfer may become eBay fodder. Pinnacle's suggestion of using it with a set-top box is unconvincing given how cheap and flexible Mac-based TV tuners are, and software such as EyeTV and The Tube will export iPod-friendly video. A more logical extension would come from QuickTime-compatible software to leverage the hardware from the desktop.