blank preview window in x4 with windows7

[ottersea]

I just upgraded to windows 7 and now there is a blank preview window when I try to capture. I have tried capturing in both DV and DVD and no preview. I am capturing via firewire from a VHS. This worked perfectly under windows xp but is not working under 7. It seems that it does capture but I cannot preview in order to find my spot on the tape. Any ideas.

[Ken Berry]

I don't have firewire on this computer, so can't connect a DV or HDV camcorder to it. But under the options icon in the Capture screen, is there no box labelled something like "Force preview mode" or mentioning preview, which you have to tick?

[ottersea]

There is a window in options/capture options that says "force to use preview mode" It is not available to be checked but it has a check mark in its box.

[Ken Berry]

The only other thing I can think of is that the upgrade to Windows 7 has installed a new Firewire driver which has caused some users -- including myself -- problems. However the problems are more usually associated with only being able to capture a few seconds or not being able to capture at all from DV or HDV camcorders. But it could be that your problem is caused by that new driver not working fully on your computer set-up.

If you want to try, you could roll back the driver to a "legacy" one which dates from XP days but which works properly in Win 7. I have set out the step by step procedure here: : http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php ... 31#p258931

If that does not work, you merely update the driver back to the Win 7 one in Device Manager.

The other thing you could do if you have no success at all would be to download a small freeware program called WinDV: windv.mourek.cz It has the advantage of allowing you to use your own names on the incoming video clips, instead of VS's rather arcane naming protocol. And should you want to capture from a HDV camcorder, there is an equivalent freeware program called HDVSplit.

[ottersea]

Thanks I will give that a try. I captured a video off one of my old VHS tapes as so far it looks like it got it all. The edit window works fine so I can edit out the front and back portion since I cannot see it in the capture preview. Will I be able to import the clip made by the WinDV into videostudio for editing?

Edited
Okay tried that and it does not work. This was a clean install not an upgrade from windows xp. It could not find any other drivers and came back already has the latest driver. Do you know what driver I can download that will work? Thanks

Edited again
Now downloaded WinDV and can not get it to do anything. Set it to the input and press capture. It says it is capturing but the counter doesn't move. Also the preview screen is also blank. There is something with windows7 that is keeping it from working.

[Ken Berry]

If WinDV does not work, I begin to suspect there is something physically wrong -- either with your firewire port/card; your firewire cable; or with the firewire capture device you have connected to the VHS recorder (is it a device like a Canopus or is it a DV camcorder with passthrough?)

And that procedure for rolling back the driver to a legacy one definitely works on clean installs of Win 7. I don't have any computers simply upgraded either from XP or Vista. All are clean installs. So I am surprised that you are not presented with any older driver...

For the record, WinDV captures, as its name implies, only in DV/AVI format -- just like the VS firewire capture. And yes, it can certainly then be opened in VS for editing.

[ottersea]

Okay, weirdest thing has happened. Yesterday the preview screen would not work in the capture window. So today I log on and get the registration window to Corel. I fill this out and start the program and everything is working fine. Or at least it is as far as I have gone so far. At least there is a preview in capture. Do not know what happened other than over night so update got installed. Thanks for the help.