Cannot see video or hear audio in Capture mode - VS9

[Elcamp]

I have both VS8 and VS9 and both have worked properly in the capture mode in the past. Recently when I tried to capture video from my Sony camcorder through a firewire, I get no picture or sound. However, VS does control the camera, I can play, fast forward, pause, stop and rewind, but I can't see or hear the video, only on the camera, itself. I have tried using both VS8 and VS9 and I get the same problem in both.

I have 2 Sony camcorders and I tried both of them with VS8 and 9 with the same result, no video or audio. Both worked fine with VS8 and VS9 in the past.

I have XP Pro, SP2, ATI AIW Radeon 8500DV card, Celeron processor 2.6 Ghz, 1 Gig Ram, 60 and 120 Gig harddrives.


Any help would be appreciated.

Elcamp

[PeterMilliken]

So what has changed on your system since sound and picture last worked? Think about any new software, driver updates etc that you may have made to the computer - this is the most likely cause. Whatever has changed, look into removing them.

Peter

[Elcamp]

Thanks Peter. Since posting this in the Ulead forum, I checked out a couple of other capture programs I have, MyDVD, ShowbizDVD, etc. and the video and sound doesn't work on any of them. So it must be something with Windows XP.

The only thing I have installed since everything last worked, other than the Microsoft XP updates, is a Java program, J2SE Runtime Environment 5.0 update 6. I will try uninstalling it and see if everything is back to normal.

Thanks again for your help.

Elcamp

[Ken Berry]

It's unlikely that Java is the problem -- I have the latest update and everything continues to work as before with Video Studio 10+ (and 9). But sure -- go ahead and try it without the Java update.

One other possibility -- apart from XP, which also sounds strange to me as again there have not been any recent Windows updates that should affect a camera -- is the camera itself. Do you have any friends with video editing programs on their computers who you could test your camera on?

[THoff]

It might be time to run Sherlock The Codec Detective and see if any codecs are missing or registrations are broken, especially if you've installed any codec packs.

[PeterMilliken]

Try Ken's suggestion first - but if all else fails, seriously consider reformating your c: drive and reinstalling from scratch. When you reach a "base" point i.e. XP + SP2 + all your application programs, printer drivers etc, then use something like Image for Windows (shareware) to snapshot an image of the c: drive. That way if you ever have any problems you can restore from the disk image back to the way your system was at that exact moment.

I use this mechanism of restoring to known "good" points all the time after I have installed trial software etc i.e. I install the trial, give it a good run and then restore an image of my c: drive - no trial software left lying around to clutter my system. It is a great mechanism for resolving unusual issues with the computer i.e. instead of scratching your head wondering why sound and picture in capture mode are nolonger working just spend 15 minutes and restore the c: drive I generally repartition my hard drive into two partitions and keep the image files on the second partition (as well as on DVD for backup) - the restore goes much quicker this way.

BTW this mechanism is also great when you have kids - sooner of later the computer starts acting strangely and a good "clean out" by restoring the image of the c: drive does wonders

Peter

P.S. If you do reinstall everything then install VS first and then as you add each new application/driver verify that VS capture is still working! A bit long winded but since you aren't sure what caused the problem you don't want to spend a day getting back to where you are right now!