NV-GS100 - PC doesnt' recognize camera HELP!

[Ray Ambrosi]

Hello!

I'm using a Panasonic NV-GS100 that Igot in Japan. I'm very satisifed with the camera overall. But now that I've tried to edit my footage, I've run into a BIG problem. When I connect the camera to my PC via firewire, the computer does not recognize the camera at all. I tried several PC computers - none recognize the camera.

My computer is a Toshiba Tecra 9000 notebook, 512 meg ram, running WinXP.

The camera menues are in Japanese, so I could be missing something. I've adjusted the settings in the menu to turn on DV out. But I still have this problem. Am I missing something? Can anyone help me?


Thanks very much,

Regards

Ray A
Regina, Saskatchewan
Canada

[Tommy Haupfear]

When you say recognize, do you mean that the PCs don't even beep or attempt to load the cam (or driver)? Did you use a different firewire cable each time?

[Paul Jason]

Make sure your camera is in VCR mode after you plug it in. The green light on the on/off switch will come on when it is in VCR mode.

[Ray Ambrosi]

Hi thanks for the replies. I have the camera in VCR mode and the computer doesn't recognize there is a signal coming from the camera at all. I've tried 2 different fire-wires both on the built-in 4 pin port on my notebook, and on the 6 pin firewire PC card. No beep, nothing indicating its getting any signal at all. Very strange. Do you have the NV GS100? Any problems like this? How do you connect it for video editing. Perhaps I'm missing some small menu adjustment?

Thanks in advance!

[Tommy Haupfear]

Ray, I have a GS100 and I just reloaded Windows XP last night. I have made no changes to DV-In/Out and even in Camera mode (or VCR mode) Windows XP immediately recognizes the cam as being Panasonic and loads the appropriate drivers. Immediately after loading the drivers another Windows box ask me if I would like to use Windows Movie Maker or Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5.

I don't have my manual with me and I'm not sure of where to change the DV In/Out as it would probably be useful to compare our settings.

[Paul Jason]

I have had no problem with XP seeing the camera either. Things went just about like it did for Tommy. You think you might have a bad Firewire card? I heard of someone who had a problem like this and they found out that it was the firewire card and not the camera. Hope you are able to find out what is wrong.

[Leo Ho]

Could you confirm your Windows XP already recognize your IEEE1394 device with following step?

Under Windows XP :

Start > setting > Control panel > System (Switch to classic view if under Category View) > Hardware > Device Manager

Your can found a detail hardware profile list, If your IEEE1394 device had correctly install on your PC system and recognize by Windows XP then you will found a IEEE1394 bus host controller and at least one item of IEEE1394 device (My Sony VIAO is : Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller )from the list. Please confirm the device status window shown : ( This device is working properly ) or not.

[Bogdan Vaglarov]

I believe you don't have to do any menu settings for the cam to be recognized.
FireWire device drivers are loaded as others said when you turn the mode deal to VCR mode.
You can't do this too fast though.
First power on the PC, next connect the cable and at last switch on the cam. Wait a little bit as at this stage the cam is in recording stanby and it's recognised from the system as capture device (web cam). If neccessary load the drivers (you might have to use the CD that came with the cam).
Then turn the switch to enter VCR mode - generic win XP drivers should load automatically if you are doing this for first time.

If this 2 steps are without responce (the web cam, and VCR) this means there should be problem with the firewire device or the system itself. Also make sure the cable is well pluged in the cam - the 4 pin plugs are a bit tight - you have to push well.

[Patricia Kim]

I hope you've gotten it to work by now. I'm not a Windows user, so I'm not sure, but it does seem to me that if you've tried on several PCs (all using XP?), have video editing software on all of them, and the cam isn't recognized, and assuming your firewire cables and ports on those PCs work with other equipment, then, as Bogdan said, it might be a drivers issue. If not, then it might indeed be something wrong with the cam (gulp!) - which I hope it isn't.

[Ray Ambrosi]

Well, thanks everyone for the suggestions. I've checked my IEEE1394 device and its working fine according to the Device Manager. I'm running a firewire harddrive off the same port. So at least I know the firewire port on my system works. The cables don't seem to be the problem either. I thought it might be a driver, but when I connect the camera to other computers it doesn't work either. When I connect a Canon videocam, I get a signal.

I'll try one more time connecting everything. If it doesn't work, I must assume that the ports on my camera have a problem. Its still under warranty, but I think its only valid in Japan (and I'm in Canada so this might be tricky).

I'll post my 'conclusions' after I check it. Thanks again

- Ray

[Leo Ho]

Before You return the camcorder for repair I will suggest you to try one more step - DV to DV direct copy - follow GS100 Japanese user manual page 104 or GS70 English version user manual page 68. Connect your GS100 to other NTSC DV Camcorder with a 4 pin to 4 pin IEEE1394 cable. If you can copy video either to or from other camcorder then means the problem must not cause by your camcorder.

GS70 English version user manual:
http://service.us.panasonic.com/OPERMANPDF/PVGS70D.PDF

[Ray Ambrosi]

Hi everyone,

Thanks very much for your suggestions. I tried everything. The 1394 firewire port on my computer is fine. I've connected two different Panasonic PV-GS13 camcorders to my computer and they are recognized immediatly. But when I connect the GS100, nothing happens. To try to isolate the problem, I did the following test:

1. I tested 2 Panasonic PV-GS13 on my computer, they are recognized immediately. The NV GS100 was not recognized at all. Nothing happened, no beep nothing.

2. I connected the 2 Panasonic PV-GS13 cameras together using a firewire and found that they immediately worked well together. If I played a tape on one, the signal was sent to the screen on the other. I did the same test using the Panasonic PV-GS13 and a Hitachi Digital 8 camera. Again, there was no problem with any of the cameras sending or recieving a signal from the other.

3. I tried this test with the NV GS100. It failed. Nothing happened. No signal was sent or received by the GS 100.

Panasonic Japan's help line suggested that my computer didn't recognize it because I wasnt' running Japanese windows. But this is clearly not important at all as other users of the NV GS100 are using English windows and it works fine. Right? And the camera failed the Camera-to-camera DV port test which has has nothing to do with windows.

So I can only assume that the DV port is faulty. The camera is still under warranty in Japan and I'll send it off soon for repairs. Hopefully they can't fix it and will send me a NV GS400 as a replacement :)

I never discovered this problem when I bought the camera as I didn't use a computer during my 6 months of fieldwork. Its only in the last few months that I found there was a problem and tried to find every method to resolve it. Sigh. So I guess the moral is test your cameras thorougly after you buy them.

If anyone has any ideas before I send it, please let me know.
Thanks again

Regards

Ray
Sask, Canada