Digital 8 Sony Camcorder To PC

Not sure if anyone in this forum can help or not but im having serious problems and need some advice

i have tried over the past year to connect a digital 8 camcorder to my pc using firewire card and cable so as to load the footage onto my pc and edit etc

after trying 2 different camcorders both made by sony both different models, 2 different firewire cards and cables and 2 different pc i still have no luck

what am i doing wrong

i cannot get the pc to acknowledge that the camcorder is connected to it

could there be somthing wrong with the pc stopping it, could there be something wrong with the setup im using the camcorders the cables what coud it be

any help or links to other sites that might help would be much appreciated

thank

 

Hi there,
Ok first some questions from me:
Have you gone into the camera setup to tell it to use the Firewire port for input/output?
Does the PC recognise the firewire card as present and working?
Can you connect anything ellse to the firewire port of the PC and does it recognise it? I.e. can you attach a external firewire hard drive to the pc?
are you using an longer than a 1 meter firewire cable?
Is the firewire cable a shielded (can u see silver braiding) one or not?
Does the cable have a interference arrestor (a little plastic knob) at either end?
If yes, are u using the end with the interference arrestor at your camera end or not.
when you connect the camera to the PC what does the PC report?

If you can please answer some/all of this and I am sure someone will assist u

 

ok firstly in my camera settings i am using a sony DCR-TRV280 by the way

there is no mention in the settings of anything for setting firewire stuff on the camera

sony even says the camera needs no setup or drivers just plug it in and away you go

as for the pc firewire card is working and recognised by the pc but i have no other firewire devices to test it with

as far as cable goes i have 2 one is solid black so cannot see inside and other is clear and appears to have silver brading inside and both are fairly short i would say about 1 meter at most

and as for the otherquestion i am not sure waht you meant by little plastic nob and all that i am just using it as instructed the big end goes in the pc and the smaller one goes in the camcorder the only way it would go

thanks in advance to anyone who can help in any way

 

Hi mate,
I have had a look for a online manual for this model and it looks like on page 55 of the owners manual there is a setting for USB streaming. Can you pls check to make sure thst you have USB streaming to OFF.
DO this and then connect back to the PC using the braided cable and tell me how you go.

 

turned setting off

connected camcorder via braided cable and nothing happened, pc did not do anything no beeps no information about anything being connected like there should have been

tried connecting with other cable and got same results nothing happend

 

Do you have anyone you can either borrow a Firewire device from?
Or alternativly, can you take your camera to another PC that has a firewire card.
We need to eliminate either one of these elements as a source of trouble!
Ask your friends if they have an external DVD burner or Hard drive that has a firewire port.

 

well how is this for an elimination process

i recently changed to a new pc earleir this year, i had the same problem on my old pc with a totally different firewire card, totally different camcorder of the same make but an earlier model

i then upgraded my camcorder to the one i have now and still had the same problems

so thats 2 computers 2 firewire cards, 2 firewire cables and 2 camcorders in multiple combinations of each and still no success

any thaughts??

 

Far out mate.
Now you have me beat. I cant think of any other plan of attck right now.

What software package are you using to control the camera from the PC?

Do you run any (very dominating) firewall program?

I know I know I am clutching at straws

 

currently i have tried several capture software including the image mixer software that came with my origional camcorder but it dont make any difference which software i use the computer isnt even acknowledging that the camcorder is being connected usually it beeps and a small message bubble from the task bar says something about a sony etc etc being connected

as for firewall im using the standard windows firewall that comes with xp

and i have also updated full to the latest updates and even tried downloading a xp fix for some problems it was having with firewire cards but still no luck

im totally bamboozled lol

 

Errr, maybe dumb question, but did you put the camcorder "On" AND in "VCR mode" while it was connected to your PC?

 

u were right about it being a dumb question lol

yeah i have tried everything i can think of

does anyone know of any other method of connecting a camcorder and getting the footage off onto a pc without using usb as that produces shit results from what i have seen

 

If you tried 2 different camcorders on 2 different computers with 2 different Firewire cards with 2 different cables without any luck, you're either doing something terribly wrong or you are just very very unlucky...

There is one alternative besides Firewire and USB (which I indeed would not recommend). Use the camcorders analog output and connect it to a an analog video-in port on your PC (if it has one, else you have to buy a capture card). But I would not recommend this either.

As behrad suggested, I really think you should try your camcorder on another PC. Take the camcorder to a PC store, tell them that you want to buy one of their models that they have on display, but that you want proof that your camcorder recognized. If it is a decent shop, they should let you connect your camcorder to a PC in their showroom...

 

thanks for all the advice

i am going to see if i can do waht you suggested and also see if i can find anoye locally with a different camcorder or firewire device i can test on the computer i am using

thanks again

 

The firewire port on the new sony digital8 camcorders is notoriously fragile. I destroyed the digital functionality of two Sony TRV-480s because I plugged it in while the device was on. I guess you're not supposed to do this, but I didn't know. So I did hundreds of dollars of damage to the camcorder, twice ($225 to fix it! The camcorder only cost $300).

There's a very good chance you blew the firewire port on the camcorder(s). Google +firewire +TRV480 +broken, you can find threads about it in camcorder forums.

 

maybe a possibility

when you did that to yours did your camcorder work occasional as in the computer would briefly for a second recognise the connection was there but then it disconnected again

as this is what sometimes happens with mine

i have tried to be very gentle with my cam with regards plugging things in and out

i never plugged it in unless it was off first but i have unplugged it a couple of times while it was on so maybe that was a cause of problems

thanks for the info

 

ps mine is a 280 not a 480 does it still have the similar problems??

 

Have you ever had this camera in for service at a sony shop?
I wonder if they have a quick tool to check on the firewire port and its health?

As was suggested take your camera in the shop and ask to see it working on a new system with firewire.

Let us know how this goes.

Good Luck,
behrad

 

yeah i am going to see if i can test everything several times with different stuff to check and find out exactly what is causing the problem before i start buying anything new or trying to get things repaired or anything

ill keep you all updated on any progress

 

What OS are you using?

 

windows xp service pack 2 with all latest updates