Pinnacle Studio Plus 700-USB version 10 ruined my regular DV capture!

[Dale Van Brocklin]

Recently I bought the Pinnacle Studio Plus 700-USB version 10 for my computer to capture analog video.
I have a Sony VAIO that has built in Firewire and came with Adobe Premiere. The computer runs on Windows XP, which was pre-installed. It had inputs to capture analog video on the front and back, but only had Gigapocket recorder to record it. I couldn't access these files in Adobe to edit them. This is why I bought the Pinnacle box and software. That was the worst mistake I ever made.
When I first loaded the software, the load process froze up. After a few trys, it finally loaded up fully. I downloaded the update to Studio 10.5, and upgraded my video card driver, which is by NVidia.
It started to capture video from my old Hi-8 camcorder, but it was dropping hundreds of frames. Then a blue screen came up that said the computer was dumping the memory and shutting down. I had to unplug the computer and plug it back in, at which point it went haywire, asking for the boot disk, and windows opening and closing at random. When I finally got it stable after two days, the program was completely installed, and I could turn it on, but everytime I would click the menu to go to capture, or tried to do anything else with it, like make a DVD, or open up the video edit section, the program immediately shut down. I removed all the software that came with Pinnacle, but the program messed up my regular DV capture, causing it to drop frames every few seconds and output video so choppy it's unwatchable. This used to work perfectly, for years, before I installed the Pinnacle USB 700 device and software. I have a video that needed to be done for next week, but that won't be happening now. Thank you, Pinnacle, for ruining my computer. I tried to capture video with the preview screen off (I always left it on), but nothing changed, it still drops frames every few seconds, and is all choppy.
Does anyone know how to fix this problem?

[Chris Barcellos]

Originally Posted by Dale Van Brocklin

Recently I bought the Pinnacle Studio Plus 700-USB version 10 for my computer to capture analog video.
I have a Sony VAIO that has built in Firewire and came with Adobe Premiere. The computer runs on Windows XP, which was pre-installed. It had inputs to capture analog video on the front and back, but only had Gigapocket recorder to record it. I couldn't access these files in Adobe to edit them. This is why I bought the Pinnacle box and software. That was the worst mistake I ever made.
When I first loaded the software, the load process froze up. After a few trys, it finally loaded up fully. I downloaded the update to Studio 10.5, and upgraded my video card driver, which is by NVidia.
It started to capture video from my old Hi-8 camcorder, but it was dropping hundreds of frames. Then a blue screen came up that said the computer was dumping the memory and shutting down. I had to unplug the computer and plug it back in, at which point it went haywire, asking for the boot disk, and windows opening and closing at random. When I finally got it stable after two days, the program was completely installed, and I could turn it on, but everytime I would click the menu to go to capture, or tried to do anything else with it, like make a DVD, or open up the video edit section, the program immediately shut down. I removed all the software that came with Pinnacle, but the program messed up my regular DV capture, causing it to drop frames every few seconds and output video so choppy it's unwatchable. This used to work perfectly, for years, before I installed the Pinnacle USB 700 device and software. I have a video that needed to be done for next week, but that won't be happening now. Thank you, Pinnacle, for ruining my computer. I tried to capture video with the preview screen off (I always left it on), but nothing changed, it still drops frames every few seconds, and is all choppy.
Does anyone know how to fix this problem?

Pinnacle has a regestry delete file on its site to remove it from registry, where the problem might exist. Try that first.

IF that doesn't work, try restoring the system to a point you had it before you attempted to upload the software. Thats standard procedure when you have a problem with a new software installation. On Windows XP You do it by selecting the Start icon, then select Help and Support, then under Pick a Task, select undo changes with system restore.

Trouble with giving you those instructions is the that Sony may have some other screwy interface on your system that won't be set up that way, so you may need to run it down.

I doubt Pinnacle is responsible. You are likely have a conflict on your system, probably with the capture utility and system already there. You may have to disable that on board system, or unload the drivers to use the Pinnacle 700 set up.

Also, there is a much simpler way to digitize Hi8-- get a Sony Digital 8 that plays Hi8. It will allow direct capture of HI8 over through the camera. Similarly, with a lot of cameras, you can capture a composite signal to digitize through the firewire...

I hope you have turned off the system restore capability.

[Dale Van Brocklin]

I had a Digital 8 camcorder for a while, but was borrowing it, and just got tired of inconviencing my friend. That's why I tried the Pinnacle box.
I don't have the Pinnacle box or software anymore, I returned the whole package after my computer messed up, and many, many retries.
This is what I've tried so far:

-I used the add/remove programs to remove all the Pinnacle Studio software that came in the box - didn't fix it.
-I defragmented my harddrives - didn't work, still captured choppy video.
-I ran antivirus software - didn't fix it.
-I updated the nVidia driver - didn't fix it.
-I updated Direct X - didn't fix it.
-I turned down the hardware acceleration, each notch until there was no hardware acceleration,
and none of the settings fixed it.
-I ran msconfig, turned off all extra programs at start up (which ran before, and didn't effect capture, but I turned them
off anyway) - didn't fix it.
-I had to re-turn on Gigapocket, which is also malfunctioning now after installing the Pinnacle software - this didn't fix it either.
-I downloaded the Registry Delete file from the PInnacle website, and ran it, but there was no option to delete Pinnacle 10.5
registry entries, if that is the problem - it only goes up to Pinnacle Studio 9.

When I start capturing video, it will play for a second or two, pause, play, jerk a bit, play, etc.
I looked at the data rate in Premiere, and usually it is all red with a white line running all the way across the top.
Now, there are gaps in the red, and the white line goes up and down.
Gigapocket will start recording, then an error screen comes up that says "Gigapocket cannot record because of lack of memory or high load of Windows enviroment." Error Message # SMENC.
I checked out the IEEE 1394 hardware in the start menu, and it tells me "This device is working properly."
I was going to take it out and put it back in, but it came preinstalled in the motherboard.
What else can be done?

[Chris Barcellos]

I couldn't tell on my first fast read whether you tried this advice :

"IF that doesn't work, try restoring the system to a point you had it before you attempted to upload the software. Thats standard procedure when you have a problem with a new software installation. On Windows XP You do it by selecting the Start icon, then select Help and Support, then under Pick a Task, select undo changes with system restore."

[Dale Van Brocklin]

My system restore doesn't work. I did follow your advice, (and everyone else who told me to do that.) The system restorfe calender comes up, and asks to punch in the date you want to restore system to - but the calender starts in August. All this happened in September, but a September system restore calender is not present. Even so, I punched in a date on August, and nothing happened. I've never used system restore, ever, except to turn it on or off to remove trojans and viruses from time to time, so I apologize if I am maybe doing something wrong. I'm thinking I may not be able to restore the computer to a previous date, but if you know how, boy I'd like to know, because I just shot a wedding for a friend that was planned way before all of this, and had to tell him it may be a while before I can edit it.

Thanks for taking the time to help, by the way, I hope I can fix this thing.

[Chris Barcellos]

Originally Posted by Dale Van Brocklin

My system restore doesn't work. I did follow your advice, (and everyone else who told me to do that.) The system restorfe calender comes up, and asks to punch in the date you want to restore system to - but the calender starts in August. All this happened in September, but a September system restore calender is not present. Even so, I punched in a date on August, and nothing happened. I've never used system restore, ever, except to turn it on or off to remove trojans and viruses from time to time, so I apologize if I am maybe doing something wrong. I'm thinking I may not be able to restore the computer to a previous date, but if you know how, boy I'd like to know, because I just shot a wedding for a friend that was planned way before all of this, and had to tell him it may be a while before I can edit it.

Thanks for taking the time to help, by the way, I hope I can fix this thing.

Well, of course there is the "other option". Usually you get a system disk that will reset everything to the original factory settings. I assume Sony does that like HP and other manufacturers. That means you need to be sure to save everything on another disk first. Usually those programs will restore to the pristine out of box way the system came to you. So unless there is a hardware problem, then you would be okay to go again by reinstalling the other stuff that you had working before the Pinnacle install. Its just a lot of work, and a pain in the !@&..