Pinnacle Video Transfer review

The Pinnacle Video Transfer is a handheld device that allows you to plug in any video source, such as a camcorder or DVD player, and copy from it directly to your iPod, Sony PSP, external hard disk or flash memory drive, storing the video content as an MPEG-4 file.

For example, you could use it to hook up your iPod to your TV or digital box and record an episode of Top Gear to watch on your way to work. This is nothing new, but making it as simple as 'press and go' is. We put the box through its paces to find out if it lived up to Pinnacle's claim.

Initial impressions of usability were good. There are just two buttons: one for starting and stopping recordings, and one for selecting recording quality. There are three quality settings, and as usual the lower the quality the less storage space recordings will use up. Along the top of the box are three phono-type AV inputs and an S-Video input. Along the bottom are two USB sockets, one of the 'A' type, as you'd find on your PC, and one of the 'B' type, as you'd find on peripherals such as a printer. This ensures you can use a standard cable to connect any of the aforementioned USB 2.0 devices that can play MPEG-4 video.

We connected the Video Transfer to our iPod and the supplied Scart cable to the Scart output on our TV. Then we pressed the Record button. An LED next to each connection changes from red to blue when an input signal is detected. If something is wrong, it flashes red - a simple yet effective way of informing you of your setup status. Happily, the real time encoding process worked flawlessly, and within minutes we were watching a TV show on our iPod. Encoding to an external hard disk and a flash drive went similarly well. The highest recording quality, while not quite DVD standard, was good enough for full screen PC viewing. It's important to note, though, that copy protected DVDs can't be ripped.