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General discussion

Sony camcorders and IEEE1394 (firewire)

Aug 25, 2004 6:35PM PDT

I have a Sony digital8 camcorder that i would like to connect to my laptop and edit movies. I have all the correct hardware and follow the steps for saving video to the hard-drive (using MS Movie Maker Program) but after imputting a file name and pressing save the program just freezes? have looked around and it seems to be a common problem when connecting Sony via firewire 400. Are there any fixes or solutions out there please? (The laptop has plenty of memory and i am using XP OS.)

Discussion is locked

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Re: Sony camcorders and IEEE1394 (firewire)
Aug 25, 2004 11:05PM PDT

Here's what I experience. On laptops that the owner installed XP, the drivers are rarely correctly installed. Some don't know that Microsoft doesn't install them. Others didn't install SP1. All these details make such an iffy situation.

Also, Movie Maker only supports a small list of cameras. As such, I always try the software the camera came with first.

Bob

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Re: Sony camcorders and IEEE1394 (firewire)
Aug 26, 2004 4:17AM PDT

Cheers for the reply Bob,

The laptop is a brand new Toshiba Sat. A40. The OS was installed by Toshiba and i updated XP as soon as i got it home (including SP1). The camcorder (Sony DCR-TRV145e) was bought on a trip to the UK and no software came with it (didnt think anything about it at the time). I have tried MS Movie Maker and other software all with the same results.

Are there other drivers you're refering to, if so can you point me in the direction of a website to check them out?

Thanks for your time with this.

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Re: Sony camcorders and IEEE1394 (firewire)
Aug 26, 2004 4:27AM PDT

That may be a clue. Some updates from Windows Update can create problems. In specific, any hardware driver. I see this break such setups all the time.

Lesson? Don't accept Windows Update drivers.

You may need to undo any such driver and after that see if VIRTUAL DUB (find with google.com) can capture. If it still doesn't work, a call to Sony or a search of Sony's web site about what it works with should be made.

Bob

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Sony camcorders and making the right choice!
Sep 2, 2004 8:45AM PDT

In response to some of your previous comments, Bob. I was wondering why you advised that "Windows Update Drivers" be left well alone. Further, I am intending to buy a camcorder, while here in the US, and I have found several good websites... With regard to pricing the best, as far as I can tell, is realdealshop.com - I was hoping you might have some advice. I have also learnt that Sony have excellent quality products but a high end price. Where as Canon have good lenses they tend to be; less good looking, not as highly rated and, seemingly, harder to use. As I am a total novice in this field I would be grateful for any recommendations in terms of product, as well as sites for purchase. To give you some sort of guideline I would be unwilling to spend more than $800 and I would like something that does well by night, as well as a digitil still capability.

John

btw... I haven't discounted JVC et al

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Sony camcorders and IEEE1394 (firewire)
Jan 21, 2005 12:48PM PST

planty,

I have a Sony Digital8 camera and have been able to connect it to an HP computer running Windows XP Home Edition SP2 using a 6Pin to 4Pin FireWire Cable that I purchased from www.cablesdirect.com 800-800-9670 for less than $15 USD.

I was able to capture video from the camera without any problems.

Prior to FireWire being available on most PC's I had purchased a DV Raptor capture card (That came with a 4Pin to 4Pin AKA iLink cable and Adobe Premier) and captured video that way. The nice thing about this setup was that Canopus provided a program that would automatically search tapes looking for start/stop points and create thumbnails of each clip.

The beauty of having a program that does this is that it makes it easy to only capture the exact portions of video you intend to use. This saves both time and disk space, which comes at a premium when editing video.

Anyway, less I digress; you might take your camera and cable to Best Buy or someplace and try capturing on one of the demo computers. If it works you know it is your computer.

Hope this helps!
Video Novice

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Sony camcorder and Sony Vaio
Dec 13, 2005 4:39AM PST

I also have a Sony DCR-TRV480 Digital8 video cam. The manual tells me I can only go direct to DVD by using an IEEE1394 firewire hooked up to a Sony Vaio PC. Is this true? I have a 2003 Compaq running XP Home with SP2. I have no firewire port, as far as I know, so am intested in what I can do, if anything, to record to my PC's DVD drive.

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have a 2003 Compaq running XP Home with SP2
Dec 13, 2005 5:00AM PST

Since you don't have a Vaio don't worry.
What you need to do is get a firewire card ($30) for your PC and a firewire cable. You can them import the video to your PC and then burn to a DVD, even edit it if you want to. XP SP2 Windows MM2 handles my Sony DCR-TRV320 fine, no problems. The link below has a lot of good info. John


http://www.timwerx.net/odds/pcfile.htm

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2003 Compaq running XP Home with SP2
Dec 14, 2005 3:37AM PST

Thanks for the reply! I knew there had to be a way. I'll give it a try. Thanks for the link info.