Video grapper/dazzle creator 90 - will it work?

[mortenjensen]

Hi all
I have an old Pinnacle Dazzle digital video creator 90.

My question: Is there any way I can get to work on a mac? I have been unable to find a driver for it.

Any suggestions?

When I plug it in, nothing happens.

Morten

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Since it is only compatible with Windows, you need Windows to use it.

Booting Windows on the Mac

 

[floh]

I'm not sure about that. While the referenced site says that Windows is a requirement, I think that only goes for the software.

There are only very few different chips in those frame grabbing devices and you might be lucky enough that yours works on a Mac. I had two of those and found that the cheap one worked, but the name brand one didn't.

If you plug it in, nothing will happen. I would start up iMovie and see if it finds a "camera" to capture from, that was the easiest way for me... You can also check if the hardware is found as usable by looking deeper into the system report (Apple on the left top -> About this Mac -> More Info -> System Report) and check out whatever is connected to the USB port and what driver is applied to it.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

I'm not sure about that. While the referenced site says that Windows is a requirement, I think that only goes for the software.

There are only very few different chips in those frame grabbing devices and you might be lucky enough that yours works on a Mac. I had two of those and found that the cheap one worked, but the name brand one didn't.

If you plug it in, nothing will happen. I would start up iMovie and see if it finds a "camera" to capture from, that was the easiest way for me... You can also check if the hardware is found as usable by looking deeper into the system report (Apple on the left top -> About this Mac -> More Info -> System Report) and check out whatever is connected to the USB port and what driver is applied to it.

Ah, okay. It is still a bit early (Nachtdreh), thus my brain is not fully functioning.

I use an eSATA ExpressCard with my MacBook Pro, and it had no Windows drivers provided. Upon looking up the device number (in System Profiler), I could find the Mac OS X drivers from SiS and use that card at the full speeds of all HDDs I can use it with. Strangely it does not work with SSDs in an eSATA dock.

Maybe a similar approach can work here too.

 

[cgbier]

Floh, those Pinnacle devices don't seem to be "plug'n'play" for whatever reason. They need drivers.
I had one of their bigger converters. Never could get it to run on a Mac (was even a pain in XP). IIRC, there were some half-baked drivers for LINUX, so maybe he can get it to run by porting the drivers (if he knows Xcode).

 

[floh]

Yes, as I said I also had trouble with a device (I think it was a Hauppauge). But a terribly cheap one (like $20) worked to my big surprise. So I though he might be lucky... but if Pinnacle is known to not work, I wouldn't waste my time playing around with Macports.

My recommendations:
1. If you want a quick grabber to capture all your old family videos, buy a cheap-o frame grabber that you find in forums to work with Macs.
2. If you want the best possible quality, have the tapes digitalized for you. There are tons of offers to do that for you, and they have better equipment.