Pinnacle Systems 210100247 LINX USB PLUS

by Pinnacle

Product Details

Product Manual [3.52mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00008E00J
• Item model number: 210100247
• Average Customer Review: 1.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 31, 2003

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Hardware OK, software needs HELP!, May 19, 2003

By 

Jeffery C. May (Cocoa, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pinnacle Systems 210100247 LINX USB PLUS (Electronics)

The hardware is simple and works as advertised. The feature-starved demo software, on the other hand, needs some quality control help.

My wife's machine: Biostar M7VKQ motherboard with 128 MB of Crucial-branded PC133 RAM. An AMD Athlon XP 2000+ fills the CPU socket. She uses Windows 98SE. The only on-board hardware she does not use is the Trident video; she employs a Diamond Viper 550 graphics card. This machine meets the minimum system requirements listed on the Pinnacle Linx USB box.

The software installer crashed near the end of its lengthly process; I reset the machine and started over. The install worked, but when I started Studio 8, I was told that there was a licensing problem and to reinstall the software. Following those instructions did not help. Using Pinnacle's help system I found that this behavior appears to be a known problem and I downloaded a new version of Studio 8. The new version worked.

My wife discovered that about 60-70% of the feaures of Studio 8 are disabled in this "LE" edition; many of the scene transitions and audio controls don't work.

At least twice during the assembly of her first project Studio crashed with an "illegal operation" dialog. Fortunately, she had saved her work often and didn't lose much. Other than those two crashes (which I think were related to having only the minimum system requirement for RAM, 128 MB), she had an absolute blast. Studio 8 is very easy to learn and use and provides many fun and exciting tools. (Too bad users have to shell out more money for most of them!)

After completing her movie, I installed the CD-video burning software. The install worked fine. I started it up and the first thing it asks is for permission to go and look for updates, which it found. The automatic update install didn't work. After manually updating the software, I found I needed to make the MPEG or AVI file in Studio. I quit the CD-V software and restarted Studio 8 which promptly crashed. I reset the machine and Studio worked normally. The generated MPEG file took about fifteen minutes to generate for an eight-minute piece. I noticed some minor MPEG artifacting in the produced clip. An AVI file was attempted, but was aborted after fifteen minutes had only reached the third scene of seventy.

Going back to the CD-V writer, I imported the MPEG file and started the CD creation process. It appears to take about forty-five minutes to create a CD-V filesystem for an eight-minute movie. On the first attempt, the writer software crashed at the very end of the filesystem creation. The second time around, it worked.

Conclusions:

1) RESET the machine before starting either Studio 8 or the CD-V authoring software.
2) 128 MB may be the "minimum system," but I bet 256 MB or more is really what is needed.
3) When it works, it's really, really fun. When it doesn't, it's really really frustrating.
4) Get ready to spend $200 or more for the "full versions" of Studio and Hollywood FX Pro if you want *all* the functionality!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Hardware Never Could Install, Software Buggy, July 10, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Pinnacle Systems 210100247 LINX USB PLUS (Electronics)

I had great plans for this product and it was recommended highly by the Comp USA representative as the one to buy. All I can think is that he must have a sadistic streak.
A total of 5 hours was spent installing the drivers on my Compaq Notebook, installing the software, dealing with the buggy license feature, installing the software upgrade and trying to run capture. It quickly appeared that the driver failed installation. Off to the website for tech support, Pinnacle seems unaware that they even sell this exact product although they do acknowledge many variants.
Removed and reinstalled the driver, which required removing and reinstalling the application, used the driver removal tool form the website, started all over again. The basic problem would seem to be that the name they chose for their driver, "USB DEVICE" conflicts with another device, rendering installation of the hardware impossible.
Read through all the support messages, no help there. A long, careful, detail filled message on their online support board was completely ignored.
I'm taking the product back and will be careful to not purchase pinnacle products in the future.
If you like hardware that won't install, buggy software, a company that does not recognize their own products and apathetic tech support you should purchase this product!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Go for a PCI card if you are serious about video capture, August 7, 2003

By 

Eldho Thomas (Saint Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pinnacle Systems 210100247 LINX USB PLUS (Electronics)

I bought this USB adapter a month ago. It proved to be of no use to me.

I used it on a Dell 866 MHz with 384MB. Everything seemed to be okay. Installation went smooth. Studio 8 is excellent (though this comes with a Studio LE which is a trimmed-down version). But the video, that is captured using it, speeds up (or skips) once in a while (as if it is trying to catch up). To give an example, I had a video of a moving train. The train moves like a centepede in the video. From asking around, I heard that the USB must be the bottleneck. I think I have USB 1.0 and that must have been the problem. I hear that USB generally is not recommended for video capture. So, I went ahead and bought a PCI card for video capture. It works great.

My piece of advice - buy this only if you have a good reason not to buy a PCI capture card. Don't even think about it if you have an older computer (with USB 1.0).