Video capture from IEEE 1394 issue

Hi,

I have Vista 32bit Ultimate Edition with all available updates from MS. I
am trying to capture video from a Sony DCR-TRB80 camcorder using Firewire.
In device manager, I can see:
- The Texas Instrument OHCI IEEE 1394 ccontroller
- Imaging Device: Sony DV camcorder.

The device is being detected, however, when I capture video using either
windows DVD capture software or Ulead 8, the captured video is choppy and
interlaced (much like video captured using a USB 1.0 interface). In both
programs, the DV controls work, so it is possible to control the camera
(rewind, FF, play, stop, etc).

(I know Ulead 8 has vista compatibility problems, however, Vista's own video
capture s/w should not :-) )

Using Ulead, I found out something else: the camera is showing up in a
device called MS1EEE1394. If I switch to the TI 1394 controller, it says no
image capture device found. That leads me to beieve that the firewire
interface might not be running at full speed, and I might not have the right
drivers.

These are the specs for my machine:
Vista Ultimate 32 bit
ASUS P5W DH Deluxe BIOS 1701 (updated)
Intel C2D (Conroe) E6600
2x1GB DDR2 533
1 DVD writeer on the Intel IDE controller
2 HDDs on the JMicron IDE controller

I tried capturing video from the camcorder at a friend's place last night
(He has 1 GB/Pentium D 825 rig on XP SP2) and the captured video quality was
awesome, so I know the problem is not with the camcorder.

I have the following questions, and would be very grateful for any help:
- Is there a way (software) to test the speed of the firewire
interface/controller?
- Is there a firewire driver for Vista that can speed up the interface
for high speed video capture?
- What (else) could be going wrong?

Thanks

I had no problems capturing from a Sony FX1 under Vista x64 using Sony's
Vegas 7.0 software. Never tried Vista's own software, so I'm not familiar
with it's resource requirements. Since your capturing to IDE drives this
may be your bottleneck that's creating the dropped frames.

Don't know of any software that can determine the 1394 speed of Vista. My
understanding though is that Vista currently only supports 1394a, and is
crippled just like XP was and defaults to S100 speed. This should be
sufficient for capturing if no other devices are using firewire during
capture.

A couple of items you might want to check:

1. Try another firewire cable or if you have a second port try it also.
2. Defrag your hard drive before capturing
3. Stop unnecessary background services\applications while capturing, e.g.
virus scanning, screen saver, etc.

You might want to try Cineform's capture software. They have a free 30 day
trial period.


"confused-plenty" <confusedplenty@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:A4A5BA46-28F1-40CB-B3DA-9A61E9AC050F@microsoft.com...
> Hi,
>
> I have Vista 32bit Ultimate Edition with all available updates from MS. I
> am trying to capture video from a Sony DCR-TRB80 camcorder using Firewire.
> In device manager, I can see:
> - The Texas Instrument OHCI IEEE 1394 ccontroller
> - Imaging Device: Sony DV camcorder.
>
> The device is being detected, however, when I capture video using either
> windows DVD capture software or Ulead 8, the captured video is choppy and
> interlaced (much like video captured using a USB 1.0 interface). In both
> programs, the DV controls work, so it is possible to control the camera
> (rewind, FF, play, stop, etc).
>
> (I know Ulead 8 has vista compatibility problems, however, Vista's own
> video
> capture s/w should not :-) )
>
> Using Ulead, I found out something else: the camera is showing up in a
> device called MS1EEE1394. If I switch to the TI 1394 controller, it says
> no
> image capture device found. That leads me to beieve that the firewire
> interface might not be running at full speed, and I might not have the
> right
> drivers.
>
> These are the specs for my machine:
> Vista Ultimate 32 bit
> ASUS P5W DH Deluxe BIOS 1701 (updated)
> Intel C2D (Conroe) E6600
> 2x1GB DDR2 533
> 1 DVD writeer on the Intel IDE controller
> 2 HDDs on the JMicron IDE controller
>
> I tried capturing video from the camcorder at a friend's place last night
> (He has 1 GB/Pentium D 825 rig on XP SP2) and the captured video quality
> was
> awesome, so I know the problem is not with the camcorder.
>
> I have the following questions, and would be very grateful for any help:
> - Is there a way (software) to test the speed of the firewire
> interface/controller?
> - Is there a firewire driver for Vista that can speed up the interface
> for high speed video capture?
> - What (else) could be going wrong?
>
> Thanks
>