1394 card supporting firewire basic

I am having trouble playing back to an XL1. I can capture just fine. I get a blue screen ever so often when trying to lay to tape.

I have been told that the XL1 utilizes the "Firewire Basic Protocol".

How can I make sure the card I have support it. Right now I am using a run of the mill Western Digital card. I have tried other cards including pinnacle, no luck.

My computer meets and exceeds all requirements for DV editing, using Premiere 6.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Edward Troxel]

It could be many things. Here are some possibilities:

1) the computer cannot keep up with the DV stream output. Verify that DMA is turned on for ALL drives.

2) the firewire card is sharing an inturrupt with another device that is taking control away from the card briefly (such as a LAN card). Verify this is not the case.

3) some background programs are running taking away CPU cycles (such as an antivirus program). The fewer background tasks running, the better.

No shared IRQs, using DMA transfer mode, and only the necessary processes running.

I believe you are right about the signal. Maybe too slow or interupted by something or not formatted correclty.

I have used other 500 dollar dv cameras hooked to my system and they perform perfectly. I have dubbed from cam to cam using my xl1 and it worked, and I have used it hooked to a DVCPro deck and it worked. Capturing works great, hardly never drops a frame. It just won't hold the signal when playing back to it.

It's really frustrating to spend almost 4 grand on a camera and not be able to use it to it's full potential.

Is there another version of the XL1 the manufacture sticker says it's a DM-XL1A?

Thanks for your input, I'll be honest with you I am an Engineer at a television station, I have been fighting this issue since I bought the camera about a year ago. I have tried everything on the computer side.

I'm real aprehensive about sending it in for service ( I've heard believable horror stories), and I use the cam almost every day in one way or another.

Thanks again for any ideas.

[Edward Troxel]

Personally, I use my XL-1 for its purpose - videoing events. I use the MiniDV Deck for its purpose - capturing and printing to/from the computer. Most people, so they don't wear out their XL-1, either buy a deck or cheaper camera for connecting to the computer. You may wish to continue using the cheaper camera for this purpose.

That's my thought also. I don't have the scratch for a deck right now. So I may just end up with a cheap cam. Or do you think I should get something like a pinnacle card with a HW CODEC on it?