Premiere CS4 (Vista) iLink Connectivity Issues?
 

I have a PC with Vista and having less, far less, than "robust" connectivity between my HD1000 and Premiere Pro CS4. Live recording to the hard drive, and, especially, trying to pull down tapes, is hit or miss. Seems like just the right combo of connecting and turning on the camera gets me success but it is very frustrating. But, it DOES work some of the time.

Error messages include "Recorder Error...Lost Connection to Device" and "Can't Activate Recorder. Try Resetting Camera."

Just wondering if other people have had similar issues. If not I will start suspecting things like the firewire port on my motherboard.

I feel like an interloper -- Canon XHA1 user -- but I have had the same issue with the firewire connector on the Canon, have to wiggle the cable just right sometimes going into OnLocation, I think it may be a common failing of the 4-pin firewire connectors. Could be a bad cable, but in my case, at least, it's just the terminal being hinkey...../Battle Vaughan/miamiherald.com video team

Be carefully wiggling that cable you could possible blow your firewire connection. Probably best to get a new cable and plug it in with the camera off then turn the camera on. I have blown my firewire port.

John

Thanks for the warning, last thing I need is to fritz something! Not wiggling vigorously, just moving the camera a little does it, but I have a feeling the 4-pin connection is not as robust as it could be.../Battle Vaughan

You shouldn't have to worry too much about frying stuff with 4-pin Firewire. The 6-pin connector carries supply voltage from the host (and should never be hot-plugged). The 4-pin carries just signal.
For some reason, HDV over Firewire has always been more trouble than DV.
Have you tried capturing with OnLocation? It sometimes handles HDV connections better than Premiere.

I have to agree with this. I am pretty much all set for studio (direct-to-computer) work via OnLocation, but grabbing video off tape is hit or miss (mostly miss).

I think I will pick up a new cable and see if it helps.

Follow-up
 

Unfortunately, it didn't have anything to do with cables.

In case this may help someone else struggling with this problem, here are my survival techniques:

- Don't even bother trying to use Premier for capture, always use OnLocation.
- If OnLocation doesn't find your camera, reboot immediately and don't waste time cycling the camera and the software.

For live capture:
- Turn camera on and on record mode.
- Start OnLocation

For tape capture:
- Turn camera on play mode
- For best reliability, go ahead and start playback
- Start OnLocation
- You MUST stop the capture in OnLocation before you reach the end of the recorded part of the tape. Otherwise it will crash OnLocation and the clip won't be usable by Premiere. You must carefully monitor the end of your recording. If you miss it, you need to reboot the computer.

Hope this helps someone.