Pinnacle Video Transfer

The name is Pinnacle Video Transfer, and what does it do? Follows the laws of physics… er, y’know, the one about energy not being created nor destroyed? It can only change from one form to another, blah blah, only this time it’s a little more complex than that. The energy we’re talking about is videos (analog video to digital, to be precise). To put it in simpler terms, from your cable TV to your iPod directly. No PC required. Yes, we found it interesting too, so let the tinkering begin…

Form
This small device is a little fatter than the iPod Classic, though the height and width are similar. The side edges are curved, and so are the top and bottom ones, so it looks a bit convex in perspective. These top and bottom edges are made of hard, translucent plastic, in a deep shade that matches the smooth black finish of the body. It looks classy, which is good – many gadgets in this genre tend to look tacky.

The controls are simple: an aluminum-finish round button is placed bang center of the top face. This isn’t a dial, its a two-way push button, with the top and bottom arcs labeled ‘mode’ and ‘rec’. Pushing mode once turns it on, and pressing it for more than 2 seconds turns it off. The rec button does what its name implies: record.