--= Help Please, I can't get my video to capture from my DV

[J Crew]

i've just purchased a song trv120 dv camcorder. i have adobe premier 6 and ulead videostudio 5 on my computer. i'm running windows 98se on a 15gb 7200rpm hard drive and have a second 40gb 7200rpm hard drive dedicated to storing digital video. i also have 256 megs of ram and it an AMD atholon 700 cpu. now to get to the problem.

on both programs, when i go to capture the video from the camcorder onto my computer they will capture maybe 1 second worth and then just freeze up. either my entire computer will freeze or it will stop recording after that 1 second and then won't let me record anymore until i restart the program. please does anyone have any ideas as to what is wrong. i've just spent a butt load of money upgrading my computer and buying new cards, etc... specefically so i could edit home movies on my computer and now something is fu#king it all up. i've read the adobe help manaul on my computer and the only thing that i've come across is something about a timecode? i know what a timecode is, but it implied that once you start recording on a tape that you must record on it completely without taking it out or rewinding/fastforwarding it until it was entirely done. on both the tapes that i've recorded on, they both have been taken out and rewinded before i was done recording completely. would this cause the problem i'm experiencing? if this is the problem, should i put in a new tape, and just record non-stop the entire thing with the lense cap on, then rewind it and record what i like so that the timecode is on the tape all the way through without any breaks? if anyone has any ideas please throw them out... i need some help and haven't been able to find it yet. thanks for your time and any help you can offer, peace

[hitechjunkie]

the root cause might be one or more of the following:

- motherboard (VIA)
- capture card (digital/firewire, analog/PCI tuner, etc.)
- capture card driver
- faulty cable (firewire, s-video, composite video, coax)

could you provide the specifics for each of the above?

[J Crew]

- motherboard: 1st Mainboard, SD11, Support Slot A CPU, AMD 751 & VIA 686A Chipset
- capture card: AVerMedia, AVer3-Port 1394 card (www.aver.com)
- capture card driver: "Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller", Provider: Microsoft, Date: 4-23-1999
- cable: don't remeber the manufacturer's name, but it's brand new... just bought it two days ago.

thanks for the questions and hope this helps bring some light on my problem. if you need any other info, just ask and i'll try to answer best i can. thanks again for your time, peace

[jiheffe]

Did you enable DMA mode for your hard disks?

[J Crew]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-13 13:36:03, jiheffe wrote:
Did you enable DMA mode for your hard disks?
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

to be honest i'm not sure. i had a buddy on mine install the hard drives for me. what is it and how would i find out? should it be enabled or should it be disabled? thanks

[J Crew]

ttt

[hitechjunkie]

i don't think having DMA disabled on your drives would cause the system to freeze.

other possible causes for your system hangs:

- soundblaster live PCI card and s/w
- other high performance PCI cards installed
- mobo's onboard sound chip enabled

try removing/disabling any/all of these until you can get your firewire card to capture without ur system freezing.

[J Crew]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-14 11:52:38, hitechjunkie wrote:
i don't think having DMA disabled on your drives would cause the system to freeze.

other possible causes for your system hangs:

- soundblaster live PCI card and s/w
- other high performance PCI cards installed
- mobo's onboard sound chip enabled

try removing/disabling any/all of these until you can get your firewire card to capture without ur system freezing.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

yes, i do have soundblaster live pci card... but what's "s/w"? the motherboard does not have onboard sound, and my other pci cards are modem, video capture 1394, and scsi. i will try disabling my soundblaster live card and see if that helps. any other ideas are welcome. also, i saw that you asked about my motherboard earlier... is my motherboard ok?... "VIA"???

thanks for the help and time, peace

p.s. - i don't know if this matters, but my harddrives are on a ultra ata/100 controller, my video card is an old 16meg viper 550, my desktop resolution is set at 1024x768x32bpp, and i've disabled write behind caching.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: J Crew on 2001-08-14 12:45:14 ]</font>

[hitechjunkie]

"soundblaster live and s/w", i meant any software which came along with the card. one user discovered that everytime he installed the Liveware application which came with his sb live card, his system would hang during a capture. when he removed the Liveware application, he could resume normal capturing.

i'd try removing the sb live card and any of its associated software first.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hitechjunkie on 2001-08-14 14:01:07 ]</font>

[J Crew]

would you suggest that i actually remove my soundblaster live, or just disable it? i've already tried disabling it with no luck... my system still freezes when capturing. i have not installed any soundblaster programs, just the drivers for the card so i guess i'll try removing the card tomorrow. does anyone think this could be driver related? no driver came with this 1394 card... maybe the drivers 98se installed aren't working well with it?... just a thought. thanks, peace

[whyme]

Fortunately I didn't have that problem with my setup, usually if something can go wrong it will for me. I did have a problem with my scsi card that was solved by swapping slots. Turned out my video card was churning out too much rfi. Something similar might be happening to your firewire card. As for the timecode on the camcorder tape, I wouldn't worry about it. Hope you get it sorted out soon.

[Nelson37]

Highly recommend using other video card. Diamond Viper notorious for faulty drivers and interaction.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Nelson37 on 2001-08-15 00:03:13 ]</font>

[J Crew]

well i completely uninstalled my soundblaster live card, then shutdown the computer and took it out physically. then restarted the computer and tried to capture video... and it actually got worse?... don't know what this means really. but i couldn't even preview the video anymore. as soon as video would pop up on my computer monitor it would freeze. if i took preview off and pressed capture... i would freeze instantly. so back to the drawing board for me.

i did notice that when i was booting up my computer this morning, that my 1394 controller card is using the same IRQ as my VGA somthing? could there be a conflict there? or is this normal? i'm starting to think my problem is driver related... just don't know what. peace

[hitechjunkie]

what PCI slot is the firewire card installed in? top? bottom? most users agree that capture cards need to be installed in top most slot. i'd leave the sblive card out, and reinstall the firewire card, topmost slot. any other PCI cards in your machine? take 'em all out as well (including the Viper, which means enabling/using the onboard video port). try to get to the most basic config possible. also, take a long hard look at any video related software installed on your machine and uninstall any you don't really need at this point for capturing. make sure you have the latest WORKING/NON-BUGGY driver, Microsoft or otherwise, for your capture card.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hitechjunkie on 2001-08-15 09:12:35 ]</font>

[hitechjunkie]

just wanted to add some other things that have solved the hang-on-capture problem for other users:

- reinstalled o/s
- reinstalled older o/s version (win98 vs win98se)
- lowered agp bus clock (bios)
- increased agp bus clock (bios)
- increased agp aperture size to 256mb (bios)
- disabled turbomode (bios)
- disabled video rom bios shadow (bios)
- decreased video accelleration

[J Crew]

tell me what you guys think about this: a guy helping me out via e-mail suggested these steps to stop my capture freeze:

Try This
Manually disable the Sony DV class driver to
enable the Microsoft DV class driver.

Note: To capture video using Sony DVGate Motion or Sony DVGate Still, you must use the Sony DV class driver. For
instructions to reenable the Sony DV class driver, see Additional Information.
To manually disable the Sony DV class driver:
1. Connect a DV device (for example, a DV
camcorder), to the computer via the iLink (FireWire) cable, and then turn on the DV device.
2. Right-click My Computer, and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.
3. Click the Device Manager tab.
4. Click the plus sign (+) beside Imaging Device, select Sony DVCR, and select Remove.
5. Right-click My Computer, and choose Explore from the pop-up menu.
6. Choose Tools > Folder Options in Windows Explorer, and then click the View tab.
7. Select "Show Hidden Files and Folders" and deselect "Hide File Extensions for Known File Types."
8. Navigate to the [x]:/Windows/Inf folder, where "x" is the disk on which Windows is installed, and then do the
following:
a. Delete the Drvdata.bin and Drvidx.bin files.
b. Rename the Sonydvcr.inf file to "Sonydvcr.old".
9. Turn off the DV device, and then turn it on. The Device Manager lists the DV device in the Imaging Device section.(This process may take several minutes.) In Windows Me, the Device Manager lists two additional items: 61883 Device Class and AVC Device Class.
10. If a Version Conflict dialog box appears, click Yes to the prompt, "Do you want to keep this file?''
Additional Information
Premiere 6.0 requires the Microsoft DV class driver to support DV capture devices in Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows 98SE, and Windows 98. Because Windows can have only one active DV driver, you must disable the Sony DV class drivers to use the Microsoft DV class drivers.

To reenable the Sony DV class driver:

1. Right-click My Computer, and choose Explore from
the pop-up
menu.
2. Navigate to the [x]:/Windows/Inf folder, where
"x" is the disk on
which Windows is installed, and do the following:
a. Delete the Drvdata.bin and Drvidx.bin files.
b. Rename the Msdv.inf file to "Msdv.old".
c. Rename the Sonydvcr.old file to "Sonydvcr.inf".
3. Connect a DV device (for example, a DV camcorder)
to the
computer via the iLink (FireWire) cable, and then
turn on the DV
device.
4. Right-click My Computer, and choose Properties
from the pop-up
menu.
5. Click the Device Manager tab.
6. Double-click Imaging Devices, select
[Manufacturer] DV
Camcorder, and then click Remove.
7. Turn off the DV device, and then turn it on.
8. If a Version Conflict dialog box appears, click
Yes to the prompt,
"Do you want to keep this file?''

ps - i'm going to go ahead right now and try to uninstall all my pci cards and put my 1394 capture card in the top most slot. i'll keep you posted on how that works out. let me know what you think about these steps i've just posted... this person said that "Microsoft Class drivers cannot coexist with third-party class drivers." thanks for all the help... i'm praying that i will get this working soon. i've spent alot of money and now i feel like it's all gone down the drain. peace







<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: J Crew on 2001-08-15 10:26:01 ]</font>

[J Crew]

ooops, just realized i don't have anything listed under "imaging" in my device manager. so i guess the steps i posted don't apply to me. i'll leave them though for others to look at incase it does apply to them.

by the way, should i have something listed under "imaging"?
later

[Braindrain]

Does the software (Premiere/Video Studio) automatically play the camcorder when you press "record"? Have you also checked the chipset of your Firewire card? I KNOW there were problems with the older/cheaper chipsets. The best ones are either the TI or Lucent chipsets.

I'm guessing a bad mobo or a bad Firewire card. I don't really know what's wrong. Mine worked on the first try. I've got a Sony as well. My Firewire card is a Maxtor which uses the Lucent chipset.

[J Crew]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-15 10:36:42, Braindrain wrote:
Does the software (Premiere/Video Studio) automatically play the camcorder when you press "record"? Have you also checked the chipset of your Firewire card? I KNOW there were problems with the older/cheaper chipsets. The best ones are either the TI or Lucent chipsets.

I'm guessing a bad mobo or a bad Firewire card. I don't really know what's wrong. Mine worked on the first try. I've got a Sony as well. My Firewire card is a Maxtor which uses the Lucent chipset.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

it may be the firewire card. i'm not sure what chipset it's using though. i'm about to uninstall all my pci cards and my viper v550 video card right now. then run capture with adobe and see what happens. i'm thinking though, that if it still locks up then it's probably my capture card... would anyone agree? thanks everyone for all your advice and help so far... especailly hitechjunkie. peace

oh, does anyone have a heading under their device mananger named "imaging"? all i have is "1394 Bus controller"... just wondering.
here's a link to the card i'm using: http://www.aver.com/products/aver3port_fw01.html

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: J Crew on 2001-08-15 14:56:07 ]</font>

[J Crew]

holy shit!... i got it to work. thanks hitechjunkie. i uninstalled all my pci cards except my ultra ata/100 controller for my hard drives. i don't have onboard video so i had to leave my viper v550 video card in, but i unistalled the video tools that go with the card and left only the drivers for the card. i then set my desktop resolution back to 800x600 and ran adobe. i captured and captured and captured without a problem. so i then upped my resolution to 1024x768x32bpp and installed my modem back... and you guessed it, still no problems. so the only two pci cards left to install are my scsi controller card for my cd burner, and my soundblaster live sound card. i'm about to walk out the door to go eat with family, but after i get back i'm gonna install these cards one at a time and i'll let you know what happens. thanks again for all the help... i feel so much better now that i've actually gotten it to work

[TOMMO]

It is perfectly true that Videowave will install a DVsoft codec, this needs to be removed from you multimedia codec listings. You need to use the Microsoft DV codec.

You also need to download the latest DV 1394 support from Microsoft.

You will see (or should) your camcorder under imaging devices when it is connected to you computer and switched on.

i am using an FIS FD11 motherboard with VIA chipsets, Soundblaster live without any problems DMA enabled all over the place.

My Firewire card is a PYRO - simple enough to install.

Premiere 5 does not support DV and Premiere 6 seems a bit quirky with my Sony Digital 8. Media Studio Pro 6 is supposed to be stable but I have not got that so I cannot comment.

VideoWave captures well but as editing goes ---well hmmm.

I doubt it is Viper, I happen to think that is a pretty damn good card when run with detonator drivers.

[hitechjunkie]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-15 16:08:49, J Crew wrote:
but i unistalled the video tools that go with the card and left only the drivers for the card
.
.
.
thanks again for all the help... i feel so much better now that i've actually gotten it to work
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

i'll bet this is what made the difference. installing the video tools probably installed a driver/codec that was causing the capture/system to freeze. you should be able to install the sblive card now with no problems. just don't get crazy installing additional video related applications.

glad you feel better...

[J Crew]

yep, i'm guessing it was the video tools too. either that or not having my capture card in the first slot or the combination of them both. after you said to take a look at all video related programs, it dawned on me that i was running a video progam that came with my viper card. i didn't really consider it causing a problem before becuase i've always installed these tools when setting up my computer. thanks again for the help. oh, i've also installed both my other cards and she's still running just fine and capturing without a problem. peace