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Are you looking for a decent MPEG2 solution to capture your own SVCD or DVDs in real time? Then you probably considered the Pinnacle Bungee.

The Pinnacle Bungee is an USB based personal video recorder with TV tuner and MPEG2 encoder. I tested the European PAL version which comes unlike the US version with a remote control and output ports.

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The package comes with the Bungee USB device, power supply, remote control with batteries, USB cable, quick installation guide and driver CD. The CD contains the drivers and software for operating the Bungee and includes the follow applications: PCTV Vision (TV view application), PCTV WebText (Teletext viewer) and PCTV Assistant (to setup the Bungee). Also included on the CD-ROM is the popular Nero Burning Rom CD burning software to burn VCDs or SVCDs, and T-Rex to convert video files.

Product specifications (European Version):

Bungee2

Input ports:
TV antenna/Cable Input
FBAS video input (Cinch socket)
S-Video in
Audio input (2x Cinch)

Output ports:
FBAS video output (Cinch socket)
S-Video out
Audio output (2x Cinch)

Input Capture Formats:
Analog video capture with composite, S-Video and TV-Tuner input
Video Capture Rate: 25 frames/sec
Video Capture Resolution: up to 720x576
Audio format: MPEG Layer 2
TV tuner: PAL B/G
Two-channel FM and NICAM
Teletext decoder with HTML Teletext application: Pinnacle PCTV Web text

Remote control
USB cable

Product specifications (US Version):

Input Ports:
TV antenna/Cable Input (F-Connector)
S Video Input
Composite Video Input (RCA-Connector)
Stereo Audio Inputs (2 RCA-Connector)

Input Capture Formats:
Analog video capture with composite (RCA), S-Video and TV-Tuner input
Video Capture Rate: 30 frames/sec
Video Capture Resolution: up to 720x480
Audio Format: MPEG-2 (MP2)
TV tuner: NTSC (For Use in North America Only)

Media Export:
Desktop Video: MPEG-2
Program Streams: SVCD, DVD

Minimum system requisitions:
- PC or laptop computer with Pentium III 500, Celeron 500, Athlon (K7-600) or Duron processor with 64 MB RAM (128 MB recommended, necessarily for Windows 2000/ Windows XP)
- Windows98, Windows Millennium Edition (ME), Windows2000 or WindowsXP
- 1GB free disk space
- DirectX 8 compatible graphics adapter (preferably with DVD playback acceleration)
- DirectX 8 compatible sound adapter
- USB 1.1 compatible connector