Re: Firewire (IEEE 1394) not working

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cmahendra;994745 Wrote:
Hi There

I had same problem with my Sony Digital8 (also called HI8 ) handycam.
My vista system was not able to detect my Handycam with a very very
cheap FIREWIRE PCI Card I bought in local market for only $4, yes four
dollars. It came with same cable 6pin to 4pin Firewire (Sony calls it
i.Link). I was trying to connect with same cable 4pin at camera end and
6pin on PCI Card, with no luck. I tried everything an expert would do,
but got only frustration. Even tried a lot on Internet for the solution
but it seems no one knew.

Then I started from scratch, TO DECIDED TO READ MANUAL. While reading
the PDF manual found on Sony Support site, trust me, I found those
golden words "USE ONLY 4PIN TO 4PIN i.Link Cable for Firewire
connection."

I ran back to market and bought 4PIN TO 4PIN Firewire Cable for $1.5
At first trial, trust me, it detected "SONY DV Camcorder" and installed
drivers automatically. I confirmed by going into Device Manager and
found same entry in Imaging Device section. Then what in every possible
software existed on my system, DV Capture was available, which was found
always disabled.
Now the funny part it, technically there is no difference in 6pin to
4pin Firewire cable as two pins are used for Voltage which is discarded
at 4 pin end. But it seems SONY Handycam does not wants itself to
connect it to 6pin socket at PCI card end.

So these are the final things to remember.
--------------------------------------------------------
1) Use only 4pin to 4pin Firewire cable (any cheaper make. $1.5 will
do)
2) Use any cheaper FIREWIRE PCI card with at least one 4pin firewire
socket. When installed XP or Vista will install driver automatically
just confirm that "IEEE 1394 bus host controller" entry is shown in
Device manager or not.
3) No matter you use cheaper or costlier PCI card or cable the quality
will always be same coz D8 Handycams directly transfer encoded Video
Data in Digital format thru Firewire cable. Firewire cable does not
transfer RF video input. I get default video with 720x576 with 25
Frames/s in PAL mode.
4) No additional codecs are required to install in pc like others
suggested. Required codecs are always there in XP and VISTA with windows
movie maker.
5) No additional software is required, as you can directly capture with
Windows Movie Maker in high quality. My choice is Adobe Premier CS3. If
you want to make directly MPG file you may use ULEAD VIDEOSTUDIO 8 or
later.
6) Dont blame SONY as they already told you which exact cable to use.
7) Dont blame Vista. Its nothing to do with it. Sony's PicturePackage
for XP does not work on vista. For vista they offered PICTURE MOTION
BROWSER which also have easy VIDEO Capture utlity with same high quality
capture.
7) In handycam mode, you can control PLAY/STOP/PAUSE of Handycam from
PC itself from all the video software you use, which is high convinience
for capturing.

8) My sureshot capture sequence is as follows
a) Remove BATTERY from camera and switch on with AC Adaptor
b) Put it on PLAY/EDIT mode (also called VCR mode).
c) Connect 4pin to 4pin firewire cable on camera side and in firewire
PCI Card. Now you see the words DV-IN on LCD of camera, if LCD is open.
d) Now start any Video Capture Software of your choice. You will find
CAPTURE command in FILE menu in almost all softwares.
e) Enjoy.....

Trust me I am going to add this information in almost all forums where
similar problems were asked but nowhere the solution found. May be I can
help them. Trust me I signed up this forum only to add this information.


Thanks for listening

Mahendra
Mumbai, India


Thanks for your input Mahendra.

I will be patient and give this a try. I do need to say though that on
my HP Pavilion dv7 Laptop I only have a 4PIN Firewire port and so all of
my attempts to my laptop were using a 4PIN to 4PIN cable. When I used
the MacBook it was 4PIN(Sony DCR-TRV315) to 6PIN(MacBook) which worked
perfectly. NOW I HAVE NOT tried another cable (maybe mine is broken) nor
have a tried another WinPC with a 4PIN connector. My major concern here
is that I am STUCK with my laptop PC and VERY VERY much want to use ONLY
it for this purpose. Regardless I will give your step by step a go and
see what happens. I will certainly open the LCD as well to see if I get
the "DV-IN" message (which would be a GOOD thing).

Thanks again.


--
Brian Walton
.

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