Pinnacle Bungee DVD
By Tom Volpe
Sr. Editor
10/3/2009
Pinnacle Systems Bungee DVD product can turn your PC into a personal video recorder (PVR) with TiVo like features. You can watch TV on your PC, pause live programs and burn content to CD or DVD. This USB-based TV tuner and MPEG-2 encoder was run through the GeekSpeakOnline labs recently and yielded some promising results with a few disappointments.
The "TV as a PC" market has grown considerably over the last year with price points in the $200-$400 range. Pinnacle’s flagship products are software-based video editing and their ventures into the hardware side has had mixed results. The must touted feature of turning your PC into a PVR without opening the case could be a big allure in the consumer market.
The $200 ($155 street) Bungee DVD integrates video capture with a hardware-based MPEG-2 codec, allowing it to stream encoding video to the PC at bit rates up to 6 Mbps. A difficult to open front plastic cover reveals S-Video and composite AV inputs making life easy for recording analog content. Setting up the Bungee was a snap. After plugging in the USB cable, the power supply and a video source (cable TV in my case), we were ready to rock.
The PCTV Assistant install program verified that the PC and device were working correctly together and within 15 minutes of opening the box, I was able to watch the Cosby show on my PC utilizing the provided PCTV Vision application. Here I was able to pause the broadcast and let PCTV Vision save the broadcast content I was missing. This ‘time-shifting’ is the hallmark of the PVR market and worked flawlessly. I have to mention that I cheated a bit and set up a channel manually and played a bit before going into, what was a tedious and time-consuming (20+ minutes!), scan for channels. Another area that proved distracting was the 2 second wait to change a channel.
All content you record is summarized in an application call the Gallery. Here you can select content for burning to Super Video CD (SVCD) or DVD. I fired up the disc recording application, dragged a ½ hour news program that I had saved and burned it to DVD. While there were no estimates in the documentation as to how much content would fit, 30 minutes seems to be the norm for SVCD and about 120 minutes from a DVD. A provided utility enables conversion from other formats.
As an unofficial test, I had my fifteen-year-old son (representing an average computer user) capture content and burn a CD with no help from me. He struggled and could have benefited from step-by-step instructions. While the documentation was adequate, there is much room for improvement.
I have looked at some other products that enable the PVR experience and found some that were comparable in features with the Bungee getting a slight edge on price. Hauppauge and ATI are the other big players in the consumer market. Now that DVD burners are coming down in price, the plan is to get all of my VHS homes movies burned to DVD. Magnetic tapes eventually break down, so if you want to save your incriminating images from the office parties of the past, this could be the product for you!
Summary: Pinnacle’s Bungee DVD product is a good basic PVR system
Pros: Easy setup, competitive price
Cons: Slow TV tuner; no remote control.
Company: Pinnacle Systems
Phone: 1.800.474.6622
Price: $200 ($155 street)
Available: Now
Category: USB-based TV tuner/MPEG encoder
Platform: Windows Me/XP
Specs: Hardware MPEG-2 encoder; USB 1.1 interface; S-Video and composite AV inputs; integrated 125-channel TV tuner.
Requirements: 500-MHz or faster CPU; 128MB system memory; DirectX 8.1-compatible audio and video hardware; CD or DVD burner.
Tom Volpe can be reached at tvolpe@geekspeakonline.net
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