Sony Z1 Firewire Connection Trouble

[Gary Elley]

Hi,

I recently bought a 20m (66ft) 6 pin to 4 pin firewire cable from Unibrain for use with a Sony Z1, however it fails to make a good connection when hooked up.

I'm aware of the IEEE 1394 cable length specs . . . however this cable is specifically designed to work with DV cameras and I bought it on recommendation, including from one member of this forum who is successfully using same.

When connected, the Z1 shows up under Win XP (SP2) Device Manager as a 61883 Class Bus Device, flagged with a yellow ! and the error message "This device cannot start. (Code 10)".

(The hardware ID is reported as 1394\Sony&HDV-VCR).

I get the same result when connected to 2 different PC's . . . with or without a repeater.

The camera connects and works perfectly when connected to either of those computers via a shorter 3m cable.

Naturally, Unibrain support express surprise and sympathy . . . but little else to date.

And Mickysoft knowledge base was a big fat zero.

Googling the error message reveals that one or two others have posted on various forums about the same (and not always involving a camcorder), but all received nil replies.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in anticipation.