For years I've had a few video-tapes archived in my study, waiting for a chance to revisit the pictures - and retouch them to show family and friends memories of bygone days.

Besides that, I have a small collection of videos I would like to watch again once in a while, maybe not the whole tape... just the best parts.

Enter the Dazzle by Pinnacle Systems!

So with some excitement I looked out for the postman to deliver the package...

It was a rainy autumn day here in the Netherlands, perfect for setting up and experimenting with the new piece of equipment! So some hours later after learning a lot about analog to digital conversion of video, I now have the raw digital material to spend the dark winter days with iMovie to make some nice memories on our family website. And when our daughter will get her iPod in the near future, I can easily give her the movie-clips of her when she was just a little baby. At any size these sights and sounds are priceless!

So let me tell you what I discovered, and get you on a kick-start to blow the dust of your video-tapes, and start working your own dynamic-digital-family-album. Of course that's just one example - I can think of many settings where analog to digital conversion of tapes come in handy. One area especially comes to mind: instruction videos can be converted to interactive courses, published on the school, college or company intra-/extra-/internet! No expensive new filming - just a Mac, the Dazzle - and lots of enthusiasm and time of course!
 

Package Contents

Cables and Videorecorder
 

   As you can see, there are no cables included to connect the Dazzle to your video source. So you'll have to go out and buy the right cables. In my case they were a scart-converter with in/out switch, audio cables, and VHS cable. I discovered that the quality of the cable is very important: I have some nice pictures of our children when they were small, so these are more than twenty years old. The quality of the tape does deteriorate, and having a good quality cable will get the most from your tape. But don't go over the top: I tried a gold-coated cable - "the best" he said... and the clips turn out hazy also: "too much signal coming through..." So, find yourself a shop where they'll help you get the right combination!

And yes, you'll need videorecorder: I bought a secondhand AKAI VS-965EOH...

I am lucky to live near a small shop where they sell quality equipment, and the shopkeeper of de Stemvork - thanks Frans! - was very helpful in choosing the right cable for my setup.

The poor quality cable consistently gave this picture (but you will see later that the silver-coated cable did pretty well):

First Experiments

For my first tries I used a video that's amazing to watch at any size: Microcosmos - tiny insects full screen, grass like a jungle... and great music. Now of course I could go and buy the dvd, because that's also available these days... but this is lots more fun.

I also found out that there are some quirks in the setup, but I solved those after some experimentation. Considering this is the 1.0 version of the Dazzle hardware/software bundle I am happy with the results. As I said the clips turned scrambled with this cheap cable; well this also happened once in a while with the good stuff... especially at scene changes. Somehow the Dazzle doesn't pick that up correctly.

First I made a keyboard shortcut to start the Pinnacle Video Capture Application - so I could start it with ctrl-p.

This is the order of events that works for me:

1 stop the video tape just before the scene change
2 start the application, and straight after that - while the app is starting up - the videorecorder
3 fill in the clip title, and click through to start recording

This way I didn't lose too much footage, and usually got clear pictures. It's a bit of trial, and usually success...

Old Family Videos

After I got the Microcosmos video right - and really enjoyed watching it again - I started converting our old family videos - and getting the routine to convert 99% of the twenty year old video tape to MPEG4 format.

This is what the capture window in the Pinnacle Video Capture application looks like. It is approximately the size you'll see on the iPod Classic:

iTunes

When at a switch of scenes the picture becomes scrambled, at the same time I stop the videorecorder and the recording in Pinnacle Video capture. Then a "continue" button brings you to this screen:

After clicking on Quit, iTunes automically starts up. When it's a long clip it takes some 15 to 30 seconds before you can watch the imported movie. In this time there is no feedback (a progress bar for instance) to see the status of the import. So from the users point of view the message in the picture above contradicts with what is actually still happening! In my opinion here is another opportunity for the Pinnacle engineers to show that the after sales support at Pinnacle is great, by solving this glitch in the update 1.x... and also showing that they will adhere to high standards of human interface guidelines Macintosh computers were once famous for!

iMovie

Although I haven't come around to making a full movie-clip, the first few minutes of importing some clips into iMovie and editing them looks very promising. It would be nice if one could buy extra time in a shop somewhere: it's a lovely hobby, but you'll need oceans of time to get results. At least I'll never get bored, even when it's cold and rainy in the next few winter months!

Screen Sizes

iPods come in different flavors, and so the movie clips will look slightly different on each. To give you an idea of screen sizes, I've measured them for you in millimeters:

• Pinnacle Video Capture window = 54 x 40
• iPod Nano = 41 x 35
  • Classic = 52 x 39,5
  • Touch = 71 x 51
• iTunes = 102 x 75

Technical Support

During my trial and error (and eventually mostly succes!) it would have been nice to talk to a human being who knows what he or she is talking about, but the "General Support Phone Number" mentioned on the cd cover was continually on the busy tone. Pity... it could have saved me some time, and certainly at the start saved me frustration!
Then I looked in the menu: ah - there it is - under "Help" I find "Online Support".

It took me to web pages full of information, which I have to wade through... not finding answers to my questions. Below just an example page, where I can choose many different products. Would it be difficult to program a url under this menu choice that brings me to an uncluttered page especially for the Dazzle for Mac 1.0 - not only with general marketing information, but... online support? And what about an extra choice: Feedback? It sets me up to a form where I can write down my question ... and get an answer within 24 hours. In terms I can understand as an end user? Or it gets me to write an email to ! That's what computers and internet are for: make communication easier – let the machine do the boring stuff?! And the human beings behind the scenes do the interesting things...

Lots of useful information... but where is the answer to my question?

In Conclusion

After a few hours of experimenting, I feel ready for an evaluation. The Dazzle in this version 1.0 is a nice piece of equipment to "conserve memories": make them available on hard disk, and put them on the web, a cd/dvd. Videotapes become worse as time goes by. These videoclips are precious at any size. In fact they are priceless, so the 100 to 110 euro for the Dazzle and the cables is a little price to pay!

There is also room for improvement:

1. better telephone/online support
2. better capture around scene changes
3. better feedback during import to iTunes
4. better picture quality at full screen?!