Updated June 9, 2009. Product re-rated.

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE.

I am a seasoned video editor who first purchased a Pinnacle product in 1996. Their analog versions were horrendously poor performers, often requiring up to four minutes of recalibration between each clip. This new model is supposed to be entirely digital. I was hoping they had ironed out the bugs by 2007. I specifically purchased the Pinnacle Dazzle Video Creator Platinum purely to test the claimed quality and performance. This product is a dismal failure.

Pinnacle claims you can take a variety of analog sources and plug them into the Dazzle, which in turn connects to a USB port, and converts direct to disk image or playable VCD or DVD. The idea is to digitalize your entire analog collection in real time.

I was careful to double all the RAM and speed requirements. Even when expertly connected and configured, the Dazzle repeatedly seizes up after a few seconds of input. Also, the Dazzle goes into a "preparing disk" mode that takes a long time - that wasn't part of the deal, Pinnacle. When your burn fails - and it will, the disk is now wrecked. Waste of your time and money.

The Pinnacle help line is a joke of some kind. After the usual long wait on hold, the robot directs you to the usual FAQ meatgrinder which never quite asks the question you have. Then you are directed to write an email - but don't bother. No matter what you write, they wait a day and send you a scripted answer that basically says "reinstall the software".

Please understand, I know what I am doing. I own an Internet cafe and I used to repair VHS players. I installed the Pinnacle software on a variety of platforms and configurations and used top quality analog players in perfect condition. I could not get the system to work, so I am hardly feeling good about receiving a stock email from Pinnacle advising me to start over.

The problem appears to be a memory lockup. The Pinnacle device advises 1GB of RAM, but appears to gobble that up within the first 15 seconds of analog input. Totally unacceptable, Pinnacle. Nor is this problem even mentioned in their accompanying literature. If the setup requires 2 GB, Pinnacle should just say so.

When connected to equipment that far exceeds Pinnacles basic requirements (I used 2.43 GHz and 2GB RAM and finally got it to record an ordinary TV signal.) After approximately 20 wasted hours, a lot of it on my professional workbench, I've concluded that the Pinnacle Dazzle Platinum does not function as claimed, and cannot be made to work.

Although I was within the return period, but I still kept the "Dazzle" to give people a demonstration of how poorly this product actually works. I [currently] have the Dazzle connected to a computer setup exactly to what Pinnacle describes. Come in to my shop and witness Dazzle sieze up and just sit there like their help lines, I invite you. I challenge Pinnacle to make this thing work on my bench as they claim it should. Ten years is enough.
I kept the editing software because it looks like it might work and I paid for it. The problem was getting the Pinnacle Dazzle device to produce anything that can be edited in the first place.

For clarity, the Pinnacle does not work out of the box, which is what we are led to expect. The instructions do not even mention the problem of lock-up and there is no reference to this type of problem on the Pinnacle web site. Undocumented performance problems are utterly dispicable and not to be tolerated under any theory, reason enough to avoid all Pinnacle products.

UPDATED MARCH 6, 2008

First, I do not unsay a word of my earlier estimations of Pinnacle's Instant DVD recorder (International Version for Windows XP 01/06). With persistence, I was finally able to get the equipment to work, that is, I was able to burn a playable DVD directly from a VHS tape. The largest problem again is still undocumented errors and cryptic error messages. I maintain it is up to the manufacturer of electronic equipment to test and document every possible configuration and publish all discrepancies in perfect English (English being the de facto language of international business, and writing English manuals also happens to be a service I offer, please email for details). In this case, the equipment was exhibiting problems not mentioned in the Pinnacle documentation - a fatal mistake in my books.

However, I am now able to offer a few suggestions to users who have had similar experiences with Dazzle. (Please note, this update concerns ONLY the "Pinnacle Instant DVD Recorder" Ver. 1.7 software and the Dazzle DVC 170 plug-in USB Analog to Digital converter device. I have not tested the Pinnacle editing software called "Quick Start" nor examined the bonus disk. Also note, that bonus disk is a DVD, not a CD, so it must be installed using a DVD reader, which takes up to 30 minutes.)

If all your other efforts with Pinnacle Dazzle have failed, try the following:

A. DO A COMPLETE FRESH REINSTALL:
If you experienced even one problem with the "Pinnacle Instant DVD Recorder" software, or have had absolutely any problem with it in the past, you must uninstall the application, and you MAY have to uninstall it twice, described as follows. First uninstall it using the Pinnacle software option in your "All Programs" menu. Then double check that it is really gone by looking in Control Panel to make sure "Pinncle Instant DVD Recorder" has been removed. If not, uninstall it a second time using the Control Panel. Then reinstall a fresh copy of "Pinnacle Instant DVD Recorder".

B. DISABLE DUAL LAYER BURN FEATURE:
Do you have a dual layer DVD burner? If so, you should turn off or disable the dual layer burn option. The Dazzle device cannot handle dual layer (ymmv). You probably have to find any software that came with your burner, or navigate through the menus of your DVD burning software (usually NTI or Nero) to find the option that disables or deselects dual layer burning. There may also be a second option that offers to burn "9.1 GB per disk", if so, set it back to 4.7 GB. Dazzle seems to work only with single layer burns on a 4.7 GB format. Beware that some burners default to dual layer after each burn, so you may have to turn it off before each instance.

C. BURNER (and disks) MUST BE 16x:
Do not attempt to "help" the Dazzle converter by lowering the burn speed. The Dazzle device can only accept, convert and retransmit at 16x. (Make sure your media is also 16x.) The Dazzle device seems geared to 16x and has no buffer so ANY lower speed will cause a memory lockup.

D. DO NOT CHANGE CHAPTER SETTINGS:
When attempt a burn, one of the "Pinnacle Instant DVD Recorder", options asks you how often you want to generate a chapter. The default is every fifteen minutes. DO NOT change this option, leave it at every fifteen minutes.

E. TITLES
If you are an experienced editor, you can leave off the titling feature (which should properly be called the option to create an "on-screen DVD menu" that plays when you first insert the disk), as this feature does not really belong here. It works well, but you should be doing that kind of thing later, when you make a movie out of your raw footage. Simply change the default radio button to "None".

Note: Using the above configuration, I have got the Pinnacle Dazzle device to work with as little as 512 MB of RAM on an 800 MHz system. This strongly indicates that Pinnacle has simply set the system requirements high rather than test, test and test again. Good luck.

UPDATED MARCH 24, 2008

I have been getting some results with the new configuration and new install described above. However, Pinnacle still falls short of the mark to the point where their advertising can be considered deceptive. This product does NOT work right out of the box as claimed by the manufacturer.

The recording feature lacks an auto-stop feature. That means the disk burn will not automatically stop just because the input tape herringbones or goes to studio blue (the two traditional patterns that occur when the recording on the original comes to an end). Both Sony and Pinnacle software lack the basic courtesty of this feature, meaning you have to attend the burn, constantly watching for the ending (like you have nothing better to do). That was not part of the deal. You should be able to set the process up and find it complete the next day. Think twice before buying anything from companies that don't do what they are supposed to do--and don't say anything in the user manual.

If you miss the tape ending, the Pinnacle both wrecks your DVD disk and locks itself on screen. Pinnacle will also lock up if your tape deck has auto-rewind. It cannot be cleared, which makes Pinnacle a deadbeat software company right there. I left it overnight and it never times out. (Windows Task Manager does not work any better than it does at other times.) You have to reboot your system to clear the Pinnacle window. This is also not mentioned in the manual.

The work-around is to set the record length to less than 120 minutes. Pinnacle asks you for the maximum record time for each of three settings (Good Better and Best) which defaults to 130 minutes. The higher settings have shorter times, but with VHS tapes the input quality is so low, stick with the "Good" setting. A small amount of your original may get missed at the end, but you don't waste two hours and a blank DVD, either.

Updated June 29, 2009

This product appears to work as advertised provided it is connected to computer equipment with at least twice, and preferably four times, the system requirements contained in the product literature.  Even then, the setup is intolerant of multi-tasking, so do not plan to use the computer for anything else during the entire process.

For something that won't concern most users, the Dazzle seems to lack the capability to deal with subchannels.  The product still has that annoying habit of appearing to work properly to the very end, and only then informing you there is a problem.  Amateurs, beware of this item, but the techno-minded should be okay over time.