firewire capture problems

[jaybird]

I have an early modle Canon ZR DV camcorder that came with an external docking station and an on-board firewire port.

When I try to use the firewire port for capture it does work, however, when capturing and/or playing back the captured footage I get a lot of "artifacts", you know, scrambled pixles floating across the PC/monitor screen but this is not seen when viewing the tape through the camera LCD.

However, when I use the docking station and either "S" video or composite through a VCR to my WinTV GO! capture card I get a perfect capture every time.

There are times when I need quick and unedited footage and it sure would be nice to be able to use my firewire port!

PC is a custom built video workstation, dual PIII's, 512 meg PC133 SDRAM, one ATA100 20 gig hdd for WIN2K PRO and one 60 gig ATA100 hdd for video.

Any ideas?

Regards,

jaybird

[ZAPPER]

Just a shot in the dark but it sounds like it may be a bad connection. Try a differnt fire wire cable. I would wiggle the connections if it were my setup, but if it is bad or going bad this could make things worse. Look closely at the connection port to see if anything looks out of wack. I would think that you could take it to a repair shop and a tech could tell you for sure. Cross your fingers and hope that it is just a bad end on a cable and not your cam. Could be a bad ground or interference too. rerout your cable and make sure that you are grounded good and even power your cam from a differnt circuit than you pc is on, just a shot in the dark.