HDV detected, SDV not? 1394 issue.
 

Calling all geeks!

Here's a good one. I have been editing nothing but HDV for about a year. Recently, I dusted off my old Sony D8 camcorder to let the kids take some video with it. When they were done, I hooked it up to my PC to capture their videos.

I plugged the firewire in, turned on the camera, and...nothing! Where was the reassuring "ding" from Windows letting me know my camera was hooked up? My capture program tells me no camera is hooked up. Maybe a problem with my capture card.

I hooked up my Canon XH-A1 and turned it on. "Ding" I was able to capture HDV. Okay, so the capture card, PC, and cable are okay. I guess the 1394 port on the Sony D8 is bad.

So...I hook up an old Canon XL-1s. Nothing. I am 100% certain that the 1394 port on the XL-1s works. What gives?

I'm a pretty big geek, but for the life of me, I can't figure this one out. Help!

Given that you're seeing HDV cams but not two different DV cams, I'm guessing it's a settings mismatch.

Don't know what SW you are using but if it's not set up for a DV project it likely won't see the DV cam. Premiere, for example, is very finicky about this. If it's an HDV project (or set to HDV capture) it won't see a DV cam at all.

I'm using Media Stufio Pro 8. However, the computer should still recognize the camcorder when it is plugged in and turned on even though the capture software is not running.

For example, I hook up the Sony or XL1 to my wife's laptop (with no editing software installed other than the stock Windows stuff) and turn on the camcorder. Windows recognizes that a device was plugged in and asks me what I want to do with it. I try the same on my PC, and I get nothing with the Sony or XL1, but it works with the XH-A1.

My specs:
Intel Q6600 Quad Core
4GB DDR2
120 GB EIDE, 250 GB SATA, 2x 320 GB SATA RAID0 hard drives
Pioneer DVD Burner
GeForce 8500GT 512 MB
Generic TI Chip 1394 card
Windows XP Pro SP2 with 1394 fix applied

This happened on my old PC as well. I thought maybe it was a software issue, but this is a 99% new PC with a fresh install of everything. The only carry-over part is the 1394 card as the new motherboard did not have it built in.

I've installed a demo of Vegas to see if that would find the SD cameras, but all it saw was the HDV. It couldn't be the 1394 card, could it? After all, it works fine with the HDV camcorder.

When you hit the "capture" on vegas doesn't it give you the choice of HDV or SD ?
Maybe you need to select SD.

Paul.

I get no detection of the camera at all, no matter what I change the capture settings to. I think I'll try a new 1394 card.

Maybe something on there got hosed.

I performed another test yesterday. I shot some SD DV footage with the XH-A1 and pluged the camera into the computer. The computer would not detect the XH-A1 in SD mode! I recorded some HDV footage, and the capture worked fine.

It sounds goofy, but that's what happens. I guess the card got spoiled by HDV footage and refuses to digest SD anymore. ;)

Thanks for all the suggestions!

DV requires different drivers to be selected by windows than HDV does. Most people have had the opposite problem - been working in DV for years, then plug in an HDV cam and no workee.

The solution (if this is indeed the problem, and it sounds like it is, because your 1394 card works!):

Start | Control Panel | System | Hardware | Device Manager

Connect your camera & turn it on in VCR mode.

You'll see a tree listing the various devices. There should be a big yellow and red exclamation point, probably either under "IEEE 1394...", "Imaging Devices" or "Sound Video & Game Controllers"

Expand that entry to find the exclamation point next to an entry like "unknown device", or "unknown AVC subunit".

(if you don't see any exclamation points, use the Action | Rescan for Devices menu items)

Now double click on that entry to open up Properties | Driver | Update Driver | Connect to Windows Update? Not this time, Next | Install from a list or specific location, Next | Don't search, I will choose, Next | Select what looks most like the camcorder you have - this could be just AVC Compliant device or may name your camcorder/manufacturer, Next.

That may be it - good luck!

(this is all about Windows seeing your camcorder in DV mode and selecting an appropriate driver for it, it should only need to be done once. This shouldn't affect Windows recognition of your HDV camcorder.)