firewire 4 pin

[gsaps]

i've recently got a laptop to edit my videos on but it has a 4 pin firewire socket (my desktop was a 6 pin).
on attatching the camcorder with the 4 pin to 4 pin lead, i can't access the camera as a source as i could on the desktop.
is this a faulty wire or does it need to be a 6 pin socket on the laptop?

thanks in advance

[Ken Berry]

No laptop as far as I am aware ever has a 6 pin Firewire plug -- it is always 4 pin. So there is a possibility that your cable could be defective or, much worse, the laptop or even the camera firewire jack is defective. Do you by any chance have a friend nearby who has a computer with Firewire that you could test the camera and cable with?

First, however, have you tried varying your procedure for connecting the camera? I mean, if with your desktop you were used to connecting the firewire, turning on the camera to PLAY mode, and then opening Video Studio to start the capture, you could try first connecting the firewire, then opening VS, and only then turning on the camera. Or vice versa. Some computers' firewire connections seem to prefer one way or the other.

Next, you could try capturing using Windows Movie Maker or download a small freeware DV capture program called WinDV which a lot of us here use (from windv.mourek.cz ). If you still cannot capture with either of these, then unfortunately, it is pretty clearly a physical problem somewhere in your Firewire set-up, either at the laptop or camera end or with the cable.

[skier-hughes]

Could even try booting the laptop with the cam connected and turned on ready.