Cannot recognize cam over Firewire
 

Hi -
I have a simple but frustrating problem and wonder if anyone else here has experience/clues about it. I've never been able to capture video to my computer... and as I don't have a modern TV capture is the way I'll view tape.

My dv852 is not recognized by my machine when connected via 1394. Once, and only once, it was seen by MS Movie Maker, but data was never transferred.
Gear: ibm Thinkpad T40 SIIG Firewire card (3-port, new). Pan dv852.
Device mgr on the pc shows no errors. The 1394 controller and cardbus card show, no dv device shows.
I've contacted SIIG support, and am in email tag with them... they seem to send stock responses without reading the user's input.

thanks much!!

Larry

Larry,
Do you have a firewall setup...like ZoneAlarm? If so, try turning it off and see if that frees up the cam. In fact, you might try turning off virus checkers, instant messengers, and anything else running in the background.

I have no firewall on the 1394 connection - tried disabling Norton anti-vir, no change after that.
Is there a need for a particular driver from Panasonic? There's no mention of any driver or camera settings in the manual.

Normally you don't need any drivers for such things to work. Can
you please supply is with some extra information since your
original post is barebones.

Here goes a list again:

1) which operating system are you using?

2) is your firewire card OHCI compliant (it usually says so in the device manager or on the box or on the company's website)?

3) I'm not familiair with your camera. Is it fully DV compatible?

4) Which software other than MS Movie Maker did you try?

5) What warnings / errors did you get?

My setup:

XP Pro
Card -
SIIG 3-port 1394 kit model NN2636
OHCI 1.1
The cam is popular on this board, haven't heard anything re connection trouble
MS Movie Maker and Ulead Visual Studio 7.0 SE
No errors - the software either hung or the cam was not detected.

After a few email rounds, the SIIG tech suggests I return the card. Since there were no errors I wonder if that's actually the problem.
One thing I like about the SIIG kit is that the card, cable and Ulead sw is bundled for $50 retail. Piecing it together with ebay would probably cost more after shipping, and then to tech support, simple returns etc.

- Larry

Laurence,

Try having your camera connected and turned on before booting up your computer. This will allow the OS to see the cam during the boot process. I have to do this with my DV500/XL1 or the compuuter cannot see the camera.

Having stumbled across this thread, I thought that I should test the Firewire connection of my DV852 that I recently purchased. Well, mine is suffering the exact same symptoms, the PC fails to see the camcorder when it is attached. I have tried this on two different computers that have different Firewire controllers and two different 4-to-6 cables. I've tried all the advice mentioned in the previous posts but still nothing-nada-zip. Both computers show that the controllers are working properly. I seriously think that I'm going to have to send the camcorder to Panasonic for servicing, but it's something that I'm loath to do so soon.

For the record, here are my details:

1) which operating system are you using?
both PCs are running XP Pro; generic drivers; all patches applied

2) is your firewire card OHCI compliant (it usually says so in the device manager or on the box or on the company's website)?
yes, Device Manager shows both controllers as OHCI compliant.
first controller is an Adaptec DuoConnect (Texas Instruments)
second controller is mobo embedded (VIA)

3) I'm not familiair with your camera. Is it fully DV compatible?
Panny DV852.

4) Which software other than MS Movie Maker did you try?
Screenblast Movie Studio v3
MyDVD v4.5
VideoStudio 7 SE

5) What warnings / errors did you get?
No warnings. The device is never detected.


I don't think I've missed anything, but I'm willing to consider any and all suggestions. Thanks.

Followup: Fixed via obscure BIOS option
 

If you have this issue with a Thinkpad or possibly another notebook:

I tried this with 2 different model notebooks, thus ruling out the hardware.. so I thought. Thinkpads, at least the T series I have, have a default BIOS setting that makes many firewire devices fail to become visible.
The option is PCI Bus Power Management. It's not under power saving/managing, it's several levelsd down in the BIOS menu. You must drill down a few levels to find it, then it must be set to Disabled not just automatic **even for use while on AC**.

Not obvious at all; I called SIIG the PC card supplier a second time and got a different tech who knew his job, and who owned 2 Thinkpads. That was less than 5 minutes on the phone. It took 9 months to uncover that bit of trivia.

Thank you very much for following up on this Laurence! That is
VERY much appreciated!! Glad you got your problem resolved,
weird how such a small thing can take so long to not work.