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Product: Express DV
Company: Pinnacle Systems
Website: http://www.pinnaclesys.com
Estimated Street Price:
$79.95
Review By: Julien Jay

Final Results And Overall Mark  

Table Of Contents
1: Introduction
2: Pinnacle Express
3:
Conclusion

Well we have reached the end of the review. Here are my final comments, notes and grades for the Pinnacle Express DV.

 

Final Comments

How It Grades

Installation: 85%
IEEE 1394 Card: 80%
Software Ease of use: 95%
Features: 70%
DVD Authoring: 80%

Price: 90%
Overall: 83.3%

With the Express DV package Pinnacle offers an affordable and simple all-in one solution to capture your own digital videos and burn them directly and effortlessly onto CDs or DVDs. The software is a marvel of clarity and simplicity while the DV PCI card does its job correctly. The concept of this kit sounds revolutionary, maybe even quite premature; but Express DV is clearly one of the first software applications of this kind. During our tests we were able to create, painlessly, attractive S-VCD and DVD-R discs that were marvellously played back by compatible players. The wonderful thing about Express DV is certainly the fact you can create a DVD without having any video or DVD knowledge thanks to its ease of use.

 Even if you can’t afford a DVD burner, the fact that Pinnacle Express DV lets you burn video CD or S-VCD formats is another plus of the product. Sharing videos on DVD is a great idea because it’s much more convenient and pleasant than using those old VHS tapes for two reasons: first the video/audio quality of a DVD is obviously far better than the one offered by a VHS tape, and second the small physical size of a DVD will help you save some valuable space. All in all Pinnacle Express DV is a winner especially for those of you who have a DVD player and a digital camera.

 

Specs & Package
Overall Score 83.3%
Version Reviewed Express DV
Software version 1.06
Release Date Out Now
In The Box? 1 Pinnacle Booster DV Card
1 FireWire cable
1 Pinnacle Express CD-Rom
1 Users Guide
The Good Points Affordable
Original concept
Good DV card
Awesome interface
Extremely simple
The Bad Points Requires a DVD-R/RW burner,
Requires a compatible DVD player,
No editing features,
No integration with Studio 7.
Reviewers Specs

Pentium 4 2.2 GHz
Asus P4TE Motherboard
Windows XP Professional
512 MB PC800 RDRAM
DirectX 8.1
19" Sony CPD-E400 Trinitron Monitor
Hercules 3D Prophet III Titanium 500
Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum
Adaptec 19160

DVD Pioneer 106s (16/40x)
Yamaha CRW3200S

Olitec USB ADSL V92 Ready Modem

PC Required

Pentium II 350MHz or higher
Microsoft Windows 98SE, Windows Me, Windows 2000 or Windows XP
DirectX 6.0 or higher
64MB of RAM
30MB of free hard disk space for the software (much more for the video capture)
CD-R/RW or DVD-R/RW burner
Available PCI port for the DV card
Digital camcorder

 

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