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  1. Member
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    I am becoming desperate in finding a resolution to this problem. My PC does not recognize my Sony HVR-Z5N camcorder when I connect it with an i-Link/Firewire cable. I have installed a Firewire PCI Express card (Rosewill, Model RC-504) on my Windows 8 machine and the 1394 OHCI (Legacy) driver. The PC does not recognize the camcorder when I turn the camcorder to playback mode and connect the i-Link cable. I have tried adjusting the output settings on the camcorder itself, as well as tried 3 different i-Link cables, another Firewire PCI Express card, and even a separate Windows 7 machine...NO LUCK AT ALL! Neither PC will recognize the camcorder! ANY INPUT IS HIGHLY APPRECIATED!
    Last edited by PersianBroskie; 7th Apr 2014 at 12:42.
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  2. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Excuse me but why have you installed a OHCI driver ? Surely that is for 1394/USB.
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    i-Link is another name for IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
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  4. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    does the connection work if you put the cam in DV mode rather than HDV?
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    I have tried that, still nothing. I read somewhere that users set it to DV and play the tape before connecting the Firewire cable, which I haven't tried yet.
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  6. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    check the camera end of the firewire cable. does the socket move? the connectors are only soldered on top of the cam circuit boards and are very fragile. either it's broken off or the circuit on the cam board fried. start looking for a replacement cam to capture with or there are some used HDV decks out there, not cheap but more reliable.
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    Thanks for the reply. That is certainly a possibility, although the i-Link/Firewire slot visually looks good and has never really been used before. I will probably test the connections with my older camcorders via Firewire to determine if the issue is arising from the camcorder itself or compatibility with the PC.
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  8. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by PersianBroskie View Post
    i-Link is another name for IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
    I know, perfectly, what a i-link cable is. I just could not see the connection with your choice of driver (if you pardon the pun).

    BTW what software are you using and what other drivers does this card offer ?
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    Oh, I see. I am using Sony Vegas Pro 12 to capture. As far as what drivers the card comes with, I am not really sure. This is the link for the card specs if you had time to check it out: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815166018. Other users were saying they were prompted to install drivers automatically when they installed the card and and power on their PC, I was not however. The default driver did not work so I installed the legacy driver (as per other forums)...neither worked. Any advice?
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  10. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    you need to either test the camera with a known good pc/firewire port or test the laptop with a known good HDV cam. HDV should be captured with HDVsplit, and DV with winDV.
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  11. Member DB83's Avatar
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    I just read the site reviews on this card

    "Refuses to capture DV"

    "Does not work with Win8"

    You may have a acquired a pup.
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  12. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    reviews on newegg are 90% positive and there are those that have it working in win 7, 8, 8.1 possibly a bad card, but i might take it out and put it in a different slot and let win 8 install the normal driver.
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  13. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Of course it could be a bad connection - reviews said it was a tad loose - so Win8 simply does not see that a card is inserted.
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    Thanks for the replies, guys. I just got home and tested the connections with my old DV camcorder and my computer did recognize the camcorder. This leads me to believe that either the firewire port on the Sony HVR-Z5N is bad or there is a setting that needs to be adjusted. The 'VCR HDV/DV' is set to DV and 'I.Link Set' is set to on. Other than that, I don't know what else I should do. Let me know if anyone has further input on this, I appreciate everything so far.
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  15. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    if it's set to export DV then the cam will convert HDV to DV and send that over firewire. you'd need to use winDV to capture. if you set the cam to HDV then use HDVsplit to capture.

    check the cam's settings menus carefully to see how to export HDV, some have several settings that need to match to get HDV out the firewire.
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  16. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Can I ask one rather obvious question.

    This PC of yours appears to be quite new. And it does not have a built-in IEEE 1394 port ?
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    aedipuss: Thanks for the input. I downloaded both programs and tried switching from DV and HDV modes and launching the respective programs and neither recognized a video device. There has to be something wrong with the port on the camera.

    DB83: Yeah, the PC is new and it did not come with a built-in IEEE 1394 port. In fact, no PC I was looking at came with one.
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    Originally Posted by PersianBroskie View Post
    DB83: Yeah, the PC is new and it did not come with a built-in IEEE 1394 port. In fact, no PC I was looking at came with one.
    I know this is going to sound stupid, but I have to ask. We have a constant problem here where new members keep absolutely critical information from us that we need to know to help them

    Your PC is a tower PC right and NOT a laptop? If it's a laptop, then just how exactly have you connected this firewire card?

    Firewire is dying so I'm not surprised that a new PC, even a tower, would come without one added. If you built your own PC you can buy a motherboard that still supports firewire on the board itself.

    Based on the other posts you may need to return this card and try another brand and model. Looks like it works for some doesn't work for others and damned if anybody who has it working understands why it doesn't work for some people. I work in IT and my experience is that when hardware is like that and it doesn't work for you and nobody understands why, you need to give up and try something different. The old Hauppauge PVR-150 video capture card was like that. Worked great for most people but if you were one of the people it didn't work for, you were NEVER going to get it working because nobody, not even Hauppauge, understood why it just didn't work for some people.
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    jman98: Yes I have a tower PC with a FireWire PCI Express card installed on it. And thanks for the reply, that makes sense (and makes absolutely no sense at the same time). So far I have tried 2 lower grade FireWire cards (purchased for under $20 each), neither one working for this particular camcorder. Might look into different cards. In fact, I will be happy if the issue is stemming for the compatibility with the card rather than coming from the camera itself.
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  20. One other thing to consider: a lot of people have problems with firewire cards that aren't based on Texas Instruments chips. If your cards don't have a TI firewire chip try switching to one that does.
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  21. I briefly glanced through the posts above and didn't see anything about trying the legacy 1394 driver. In my win7 64 I could not transfer DV to my computer unless I used the legacy driver. Not sure Win 8 has this problem but worth a try. And the fact that he can transfer some DV to his computer probably rules this fix out.
    Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence -Carl Sagan
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