Capture analog video from sony camcorder

[gthoman]

Hello All...

I'm a newbie and hope someone can help....My computer is an HP m1070n with WinXP Media Edition 2005 with SP3 and the only upgrade I have done is add 2GB of RAM...I had some problems with the computer and formatted and started from scratch, but did not backup the drivers....So, it took some time to track down drivers and not sure I have them all....

I have a couple of camcorders one DV and the other 8mm. I was able to easily move my DV videos using WinDV and a Firewire cable......The computer has composite inputs on the front, that I connect my Sony camcorder to...In the past it was not a problem, but now it does not seem to be recognized....I tried using Movie Maker to capture, but it shows a tv channel that it can capture, but not the video camera...I have gone in media center and tried to change the channel to something like AV2, I think this is what I did in the past, but it didn't work only shows channel 2-98...I think in the past I used intervideo..but that also went away when I formatted.....Is there anything to check to make sure the composite connections on the front of the computer are working? Could it be movie maker? Missing driver?

Thanks...

Gene

[edDV]

Hello All...

I'm a newbie and hope someone can help....My computer is an HP m1070n with WinXP Media Edition 2005 with SP3 and the only upgrade I have done is add 2GB of RAM...I had some problems with the computer and formatted and started from scratch, but did not backup the drivers....So, it took some time to track down drivers and not sure I have them all....

I have a couple of camcorders one DV and the other 8mm. I was able to easily move my DV videos using WinDV and a Firewire cable......The computer has composite inputs on the front, that I connect my Sony camcorder to...In the past it was not a problem, but now it does not seem to be recognized....I tried using Movie Maker to capture, but it shows a tv channel that it can capture, but not the video camera...I have gone in media center and tried to change the channel to something like AV2, I think this is what I did in the past, but it didn't work only shows channel 2-98...I think in the past I used intervideo..but that also went away when I formatted.....Is there anything to check to make sure the composite connections on the front of the computer are working? Could it be movie maker? Missing driver?

Thanks...

Gene

When you formatted did you use the HP restore disks that came with the computer? If so it would restore to the state when new. You would then need to add SP3 from Windows update and then let Windows update do the rest. Then see what is missing.

This page lists current driver, software versions
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?dlc=en&lc=en&product=426501&lang=en&cc=us&os=228

Recovery disc info.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=bph07143&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&os=228...426501&lang=en

[gthoman]

Thought I had them on CD with the manuals, but didn't realize until it was too late that the drivers were on the system and I needed to create backup CD's.....Upgraded to media edition 2005, needed the later version of XP so I could upgrade the media player for streaming.....So, thats why I'm trying to find out if there's a way to test to make sure I have the correct drivers and why the composite input doesn't seem to be working....

[gthoman]

By the way...thanks for the reply edDV...I did go to the HP pages to update my current drivers and checked for the recovery cd's but they do not have them anymore..... Under Device Manager, I don't see yellow or red, so it seems things are happy and seems everything is working....just happens to be the one thing I'm trying to do now...

[edDV]

By the way...thanks for the reply edDV...I did go to the HP pages to update my current drivers and checked for the recovery cd's but they do not have them anymore..... Under Device Manager, I don't see yellow or red, so it seems things are happy and seems everything is working....just happens to be the one thing I'm trying to do now...

Best talk this over with HP support.

[gthoman]

Thanks...but the computer is older and ran out of suppport...Thats the reason I'm on this forum...Any other ideas??

[minidv2dvd]

right click on my computer and go into the properties/hardware/device manager and see if anything is listed as not working. especially the ieee1394 bus. you may not have installed a driver for it.

[gthoman]

Nothing showing as not working.....Under the IEEE 1394 Bus it has VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller...

[minidv2dvd]

missed that firewire was working, sorry. what do the composite inputs connect to? a capture card of some sort?

does the minidv cam do analog to digital passthrough? that would be a way to capture from the 8mm cam.

[edDV]

You are missing the capture card driver. HP should know where it is in that list of drivers. Otherwise uninstall and reinstall each one. Understand that you have a proprietary machine. Only HP knows how it is structured unless there are HP MCE support forums.

[minidv2dvd]

here's something from the hp page.

NOTE: Before you open your video capturing software make sure that you have completed the Media Center setup screens and then check the following:

1.
Close the Media Center software.
2.
Press CTRL + ALT + DEL , click the Task Manager button, select ehRec.exe from the list of items (if it is listed).
3.
With ehRec selected, click End Process .
4.
Close the window. You can now use your capturing software.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=bph07926&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&produc...501&rule=17829

[gthoman]

You hit it on the head minidv2dvd....Thanks for all the replies!! It did seem to be the eh* processes that were running that caused the problem...Once I stopped those processes and rebooted I was able to choose the video source....
Another questions related, but can open another thread if needed....Does it matter what software is used to capture the video since its analog? Will it make a quality differnce? Using windows movie maker seems to work, but wanted to know if there was better software that might make a difference in the capture....Thanks again for the replies and really looking into the problem...........

[minidv2dvd]

what is the end product you are looking to produce? video files to watch on the computer, dvd to play in a standalone, divx for media player, other? what format are you currently capturing the files too?

if wmm makes acceptable results to your eye, there's no need to look for anything else.

[edDV]

You hit it on the head minidv2dvd....Thanks for all the replies!! It did seem to be the eh* processes that were running that caused the problem...Once I stopped those processes and rebooted I was able to choose the video source....

Yep when MCE gets control of a cap card it doesn't want to let go no matter what you want. One must resort to process murder.

[gthoman]

I basically want to stream these to my PS3 and XBOX360......They are currently coming in as mpg files. I used PowerDirector to capture the video.....I've done a couple now and they look great on the PS3....Just taking up alot of space....So...everything is now working great....thanks again....

Gene