What's happened to Pinnacle/Avid MovieBox since Corel got it

[appleton]

"MovieBox" was originally a Pinnacle product and included a breakout box for capturing video from a wide range of video devices. Pinnacle products were bought by Avid, and MovieBox was featured in the Avid shop until a few weeks ago when it disppeared.

The Avid consumer products have apparently been sold to Corel a few months ago, so this presumably includes MovieBox.

The really useful thing about MovieBox is that it allows video to be captured in its native DV format from a DV or Digital8 camcorders (and this includes capture from older 8mm analog tapes aswell) via a computer's USB socket.

As you might know, DV or Digital 8 camcorders have a firewire port, so you can only capture video from them via a firewire cable - and that means your computer must have a firewire port. If you have a desktop PC then you can simply add a firewire internal PCI card to it. If you only have a laptop then a small number of older laptops were equipped with a firewire port, or equipped with an express card slot where you can plug in a firewire express expansion card - in either case you are OK until the laptop dies.

But if you only have a more recent laptop, then these usually do not come with a firewire port or express expansion slot so you are stuck. This is the position I found myself in with a large number of old DV and Hi8 tapes that I could not capture on my laptop.

This is where the Pinnacle/Avid Moviebox saved my bacon. You simply plug the firewire cable from the camcorder into the MovieBox breakout box, and then connect the box to the laptop's USB port. It then looks to laptop as if the camcorder is plugged in directly - capture works great and even the tape transport commands work aswell. So effectively you can capture via USB instead of firewire.

MovieBox is a brilliant solution, and there does not seem to be any other solution for people who only have a modern laptop.

And yet MovieBox seems to have completely disappeared. You can't seem to buy it anywhere. I managed to snap up one from Ebay, but otherwise it seems to be no longer available since Corel took it over.

Have Corel really deleted this superbly useful bit of kit?

[BrianCee]

unfortunately we cannot directly answer your question in these forums as we are devoted to Corel digital media products. it is true that Corel now own Pinnacle/movie box and as far as I can see those products are still fully supported - but if you want specific answers about those products you need to go to the Corel Pinnacle support website which you will find here :-

http://corel.force.com/pinnacle?lang=en

With regard to your comment about moviebox being the only solution for you - that is not completely true as there are other similar items out there not least of which are those from Canopus which are possibly better known than moviebox.
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[Ken Berry]

I have to confess this is the first I've heard of MovieBox! But it really does sound interesting, especially the Firewire/USB link. I imagine it would also work for HDV which as you know uses Firewire to download/capture. My current computer (Profile) does not come with a Firewire port or expansion slot, so I am in the situation you describe. But luckily I have several other computers with Firewire ports, so I capture my DV or HDV with them and store the captured video on an external hard drive, which I can then connect to my current laptop. Works well, but it's nice to know there is (or was) a more direct alternative.

EDIT: looking at the MovieBox specifications, I see that it does indeed also capture HDV using the Firewire/USB link. http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/u ... ion+14.htm

[dw54]

Hi again Ken.

The link you provided doesn't go to Movie Box, but to an analog capture device to USB.

There's nothing on the Pinnacle site about the Movie Box. It's the product I need, but the question is - can I obtain one?

As for Canopus - their products are now under "GRass Valley." They do just about everything BUT take a DV data stream in a Firewire 1394a link and convert it to suit the USB2.0 or later protocols.

That's what we need - have we been abandoned by the industry? Are there no stocks left?

DW54 in Tasmania, Australia

[Ken Berry]

Obviously a lot can change in less than a year. Certainly, when I posted it last year, that link led to a MovieBox page. But I see now that the link has changed and leads only to the Dazzle device. Moreover, that device seems to be the only one now available via Pinnacle.

I know I have seen in the past references to other Firewire-to-USB "cables" or devices, but the jury was definitely out on whether they worked or not, or what might be required to get them to work. And again the MovieBox appeared to be the only one on which there was agreement that it worked!

I guess the only option I can think of is to check out sites like Amazon. I note for instance that the Amazon UK site advertises MovieBox 14 for 169 pounds... But maybe other sites might also have them... perhaps second hand???

I haven't pursued the matter any further myself since I still rely only Firewire capture via an older computer with a Firewire port. But I have occasionally wondered whether you could do it via HDMI -- at least for camcorders which have a HDMI port (as my Canon HV20 does). But even there I am not sure whether the HDMI could be used for capture on my laptop which also has a HDMI port, or whether it is for only for the purpose of being able to play video directly to a HDTV from the camcorder or computer. There does appear to be at least one HDMI capture device, called the Blackmagic Shuttle: http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/product ... ty/models/ However, I think from a quick look at their website that you require a computer with USB 3.0, which none of mine have!!

So indeed I suspect we have to an extent been abandoned by the industry on the Firewire front at least...