System detects camcorder but won't capture

[joedotcom]

Hi all - wondering if someone can help with this bc its about to drive me up the wall.

I have a Sony Digital 8 with DV out which I've connected to a PCMCIA firewire card on my laptop with a 4 to 6 pin cable. XP has detected the camera as a SONY DV device and I can control the cam through any program (WMM, Videostudio, Virtualdub etc) but there is no preview, and when i try to capture DV (or anything else for that matter) all programs say that they can't capture or that the file is corrupt.

An additional note which may or may not be important: I'm using the generic 4-6pin cable that came with the firewire card. According to the card manufacturer Sony cams need their own i.link cable in order to transfer. To make things more confusing, Sony reps swear that a standard firewire cable will do the job. Again, I don't know if that's where the problem is, and I'm not to keen on spending another 60 Euro on the cable just to find out that the problem is somewhere else...

If anyone can help with this I'd appreciate it.

TIA

JDC

[Tommyknocker]

I capture with my Sony camera all the time using a store bought 4 to 6 pin cable. When using Video Studio, I make sure I select DV in the capture page, and the preview pops up. I get the occaisional error you mentioned, but reselcting the capture function again usually cleears it up. So I doubt if anything is wrong with your cable, computer, or camera for that matter.