Pinnacle Video Capture for Mac, aka Dazzle

Reviewed by Steven Fyffe

Pinnacle Systems

A division of Avid Technology, Inc.

280 North Bernardo Avenue

Mountain View,

California 94043

Tel: 650-526-1600

Fax: 650-526-1601

http://www.pinnaclesys.com

Released: Sept 2007

$100 USD

Strengths: Easy to set up and use.

Weaknesses: It is an analog to digital converter, not an editor.

Introduction

Juliet: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet." Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Pinnacle Video Capture for Mac is Dazzle for the Macintosh. A few years ago, the on-off, 1-0 digital age beamed down for video. All us geeky videographers jumped at the chance to convert their analog to digital video, for the sheer joy of watching their favorite episodes of Star Trek on their computer. Many of the early DV camcorders included a pass-through function, allowing you to convert analog VHS tapes into digital video. However, for those of us without one of those expensive cameras, we were not left in the analog wastelands. Along came Dazzle to the rescue … well, at least for Windows users.

Pinnacle Video Capture for Mac is not as emotionally charged a name as Dazzle, but its name tells it all ... a rose by any other name smells just as sweet. Now, it is sweet indeed for Mac OS X users. Dazzle did not resurface as a fancy new device, with lots of bells and whistles. It is the same hardware which has been around for awhile, but now with Mac OS X software. Dazzle is still a sweet smelling rose. It is a reliable analog video to digital converter.

It reliably and efficiently does one thing, which its new name emphasizes. Pinnacle Video Capture for Mac does just that, it captures analog video for Macintosh users. Dazzle makes no claims to be a video editor. For that you would need Quick Time Pro or iMovie.

Dazzle has two analog video input ports, S-Video and composite (yellow). It also captures stereo RCA audio. If you have old VHS tapes and you want to digitize them, Dazzle will do the job. Those old analog camcorders could use a little Dazzle, if you are still using them. But it doesn’t stop there. You can even use Dazzle to capture an analog video from a DVD player to quickly push it into your iPhone. Shucks, I was even able to capture live television broadcasts and DVR recorded programs using Dazzle. All you need is a device with either an S-Video or composite video output.

Speed is the biggest advantage of Pinnacle Video Capture for Mac, if you want to push those VHS tapes or DVDs into your video iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV as quickly as possible. I have used eyeTV for several years and it has many more bells and whistles than Dazzle, but every recording on an eyeTV must be exported out of it proprietary MPEG-2 format into a format compatible with an iPod or Apple TV. No need for that with Dazzle. Immediately, after Dazzle encodes the analog video at 29.97 frames-per-second in MPEG-4 format, the captured video is pumped into iTunes, ready to sync to your iPod or iPhone or to stream to your Apple TV. Considering that the resolution of the captured video is 640 x 480, I found the quality excellent on my fifth generation iPod. Of course, streaming a lower resolution video to my HDTV looks a little grainy.

You can burn DVDs using the MPEG-4 Dazzle captured video. The quality is also good, but if you have several videos you want to backup by burning DVD copies, you may want to consider other alternatives. I found that using Toast, it took hours and hours to encode the MPEG-4, before it even started the burning process. I usually backup my grandson’s DVDs, and I found eyeTV is the speed demon for this function. Namely because eyeTV encodes them as MPEG-2 and within 25 minutes after recording a DVD, I can hand Jared his own copy of a DVD for his, not always gentle 6 year old hands. Again Dazzle can do the job, but the time it takes is much longer with Dazzle’s MPEG-4 captured video, and there is no option to capture and encode at a higher resolution, unlike eyeTV.

As to cost, Dazzle is only $99. If all you need is basic video capture, Dazzle is for you. If you need more bells and whistles than Dazzle provides, I suggest you consider eyeTV which costs between $150 to $200.

Taking into consideration the above stated limitations, Pinnacle Video Capture for Mac aka Dazzle is indeed a rose. Its software is easy to use. Just plug the analog video source into Dazzle. Plug Dazzle’s connected USB 2 cable into your Mac. The software guides you through a couple steps to confirm your audio and video signals. Click record and the next thing you know, your digital video is in iTunes.

I hope you find this review helpful

Steve Fyffe