Okay, I have read alot of bad stuff about this device.  I thought the VT was

the answer to my need, but now not so sure.  My wife will be deploying to

the Middle East next month, and I am looking for a simple way of copying

a couple of TV programs to VCR and then to digital.  The last time she went

I had to copy VHS to MiniDV to PC and then to DVD.  When I saw the Circuit

City ad for the VT and went to the Pinnacle site and watched the videos about

the device I thought I had found the answer.  But now after reading some of the

posts in this forum I'm not so sure anymore.  So if you aren't happy with the

VT and you have used something you like better, let me know.  Any and all

info will be appreciated.  BTW, it doesn't have to be saved to DVD.  Just as

long as she can watch it on her laptop.
 

Thanks
 

It seems to work fine for recording TV.

There is an issue with older home videos. (it stops recording during a transition)

Another approach would be to get a tv capture card that you can program to record and encode shows for you so you wouldn't need the vcr.

I've got directTv with tivo. I received the Pinnacle unit, plugged into the outputs on my TV, and within 15 mins I was recording a program off my  DirecTV/Tivo directly to my Sony PSP. It worked great. I then tried my iPod classic, it also worked perfectly. I haven't tried a any other device, but it should work fine with any USB device.

Now my problem. So far I haven't found a way to remove the video from my iPod. It shows up and plays fine on the iPod. It just doesn't show up anywhere else. It doesn't sync or show up in iTunes, ver 7.7. With the iPod in disk mode, the videos don't show up in Vista or iTunes either. I can't find them anywhere except ON the iPod. Luckily, I only transfered one movie, so I've only lost ~1gig, until I find a way to remove the video.

So overall it seems to work great, just what I was looking for. (as long as I find a way to delete the file off of my iPod) Any device that has a component or s-video output should work fine, but I think there is a 4Gig limit to the file size due to the FAT32 limit.

Well I did buy one and although it seems to work as advertised, my wife's laptop (3 yr old Sony

with only 128M of memory, and 20 gig hd partitioned into to 10 gig partitions) just could not

handle the mpeg4 videos.  It will play dvd's just fine.  So I guess I'll do it the hard way or maybe

have a look at the Dazzle DVD recorder.  She should've gotten that new Dell before she left rather

than wait until she gets back.

You should add some memory to that thing. 128M isn't even enough to run most operating systems.

I find it hard to believe that a 3 year old laptop would only have 128M anyway...It may be that that laptop is more like 8 years old.

What processor does it have?

If I remember right it is an Athlon 4 and running XP.  At the most it is 5 yrs old.  Once she gets back

from her deployment to the "Big Sandbox" she plans on getting a new Dell.  Yeah it needs more memory

and bigger hd.  But that will be somebody else's worry.
 

The PVT has been working great for me.  Been transferring episodes of House from commercial DVDs to my iPod Touch.  Great for watching on long flights.  The PVT is a great little device.