Windows XP and Firewire 1394 camera

chum94555 · Post by **chum94555** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 6:52 pm

I ran into a problem recently while caturing video clips using my SONY CAMCORDER using IEEE 1394 Firewire port. All of a sudden my PC (with XP HOME) will not recognize my camcorder. I knew the system worked well before and recognized my camera

What I found out is (and this had nothing to do with UVS or any other Application) if you have two IEEE 1394 decives attached to WINXP PC, one or both may not be recognized . There is a work around which involved disabling your IEEE devide and enabling it and then connect the IEEE CAMERA. I simpy disconneted by other IEEE1394 device which was extarnal DVD burner and conencted my camera and it worked

Just fyi if you run into such a problem

thanks

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 10:22 pm

Sorry, but I ALWAYS capture from my digital video camera by connecting it piggy-back by Firewire to an external Firewire hard disk drive and then to the computer, so I suspect your problem may not wholly relate to some peculiar behaviour of XP... Firewire devices can of course theoretically piggy-back with up to (I think) 128 Firewire devices total, though I have never tried. At most, I have a couple of times also piggy-backed my camera on to two external HDDs. But it is also good practice, I find, to have all the devices connected and switched on before turning on Video Studio -- though once again I have often switched on the piggy-backed camera after opening Video Studio (e.g. thinking I have finished capturing and switching off the camera, but later finding I needed to capture some more). However, in those circumstances, the first external hard disk was already attached and switched on.

keenart · Post by **keenart** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 11:45 pm

Yes Microsooft XP has a problem with Firewire, and Microsoft put a fix out that was included in XP SP 2 that is supposed to correct the condition.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 10:46 pm

OK -- I accept that there was a problem, but the only times I have experienced it was with two external hard disk drives piggy-backed on each other. Never with my digital video camera as the second device. I realise that the computer treats the camera as an external drive, but I must have been lucky and never experienced a problem with that. I think it may also be because the computer does not try to write to any (non-existent?) cache on the camera, which is where the Firewire problem normally occurs, namely a failure to write to cache, whereupon the drive freezes. And despite SP2 supposedly fixing the problem, I don't think that has happened in all cases. Certainly not mine, sadly.

keenart · Post by **keenart** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 11:28 pm

I agree with you whole heartedly. It seems no matter how many people have SP2, they can still have a problems that is supposed to be fixed.

I queried Microsoft and they simply say the fixes are generic in nature and supposed to take care of the majority of problems. However, there are isolated cases where the fix may not work. I think 9 out of 10 of us must be in the “isolated” category!

In frustration I finally gave up Firewire, went to High Speed USB 2 and am one happy puppy now. Go figure!

chum94555 · Post by **chum94555** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 12:00 am

Actually I found out Microsoft has a bulletin out on the subject. What I gather is there are two types (or should I say versions) of OHCI COMPLIANT 1394 standards.. One is 1394-1995 and second is 1394-2000
and if you have two devices with te above two diffrent vesrions, PC with Home XP will not recognize one or both the 1394 devices as was the case w me

There is a work around in that you can disable 1394 DEVICE DRIVER AND RE-ENABLE IT AND THEN TURN ON THE DEVICES AND SHOULD WORK

fyi

ks