Video Capture Not Working For Sony Mini Dv

[Jenvin]

I just received the Creator 2011 DVD yesterday and installed it in my new one month old Gateway system. The installation was smooth without any error messages. I also tried editing a large video of about 40 mins without any problem.

 

However when I connected my mini-DV camera (Sony model DCR-TRV33) and opened the video capture module in Creator 2011, it did not find any camera connected though the camera was listed in Devices connected and working properly. I am using a NEC IEEE1394 OHCI compatible PCI card to connect the camera. The driver is latest that is available from Microsoft.

 

On the second attempt I rebooted the system with camara still connected and on (playback mode). When I opened the video capture module, this time the camera was recognized and the video was available in the preview. The status showed "ready to capture". However, all the buttons (play, rewind etc) below the preview were inactive and there was a note beside the buttons "no media". Also the "capture" and "capture full tape" buttons were inactive. I could chose the destination folder and file name for captured video though. When I use the camera controls to play, rewind etc. it all comes ok on the preview including the sound. But I cannot use the Creator buttons below the preview or do the capture. Do not understand why it says "no media" while preview clearly shows midea being played.

 

My system is Gateway Windows7 Home Premium 64bit/ Intel Core i3 550/4gb DDR3/1TB hard drive - 850GB free/ATI Radicon HD 5450 512mb. I am experienced video editor having owned Videowave7 for past 6 years on a XP system. However, Videowave7 would not work with Windows7 system, so I purchased Creator 2011.

[Jim_Hardin]

Win7 changed things with Firewire making many of the older devices unusable…

 

You can try a 3rd party caputure program, WinDV.

 

You may want to change to 1394 Legacy setting before doing that.

 

Right Click on Computer and select Properties:

 

 

Select Device Manager:

 

 

Right Click your controller and select Properties:

 

 

Update Driver:

 

 

“Browse my Computer”:

 

 

“Let me pick…”:

 

 

Pick the “(Legacy) choice:

 

 

OK your way out and note “Legacy” now showing:

 

 

 

Reboot and give it a try…

[Jenvin]

Jim, thanks a lot for your help. I changed the driver to (Legacy) and it worked. You are right, my firewire card is some 6 years old. My new system came without firewire, so I installed the card from my old system. I captured over 2 hours of video last night. I noticed quite a few dropped frames (the program does not have a feature to indicate any dropped frames) but when editing the captured video it was jerky in some areas. Any ideas to resolve this issue? I have no such issues when working with Videowave7 on XP. Again thanks so much for your help.

[Jim_Hardin]

Firewire is relentless! There are no Checks, Stops, Pauses, Repeats, the data just keeps coming at 400 mbps…

 

As a result, your PC has to be able to handle and put away that data.

 

Defragged disc drives, with plenty of space and nothing else cutting into CPU cycles!

 

Try that and see what happens.

[Jenvin]

Thanks again Jim. I do not think disk space (I have 800GB free on 1TB drive) and fragmentation is a problem. I have been doing this for past 6 years, so I defrag the drive before every video session I work on. I will try with a clean boot and see what happens. Do you think replacing the firewire card with a newer one would help though I doubt older card is the culprit?

[Jim_Hardin]

I would try everything else. I use my old card without problem.

 

I have not done any hard core DVD capture since I went to HD about 1 1/2 years ago…

 

I did use it with an old camcorder to make those screen caps.

[ggrussell]

See if you can find updated Win 7 64bit drivers for the NEC card. Not just updates from Microsoft. I had a similar problem with my HP Laptop firewire. I was fortunate that HP did have a 64bit driver update available. No dropped frames that I can tell so far (fingers crossed LOL).