Can't get video from camcorder to computer

[AarontheRipper]

My parents just recently bought a new computer with a dvd burner and wanted me to help them figure out how to transfer their footage to it so that they could burn it on a dvd. I've been doing this for a while with my sony miniDV camcorder without a problem. Their camcorder is a little older D8, but has all the features it would need to transfer footage via firewire. I've had to do this all over the phone with my mom who is less than computer savy, but we can't seem to get it to work. The problem is simply in getting the computer to recognize the camcorder so that the footage can be transferred. What software/drivers are needed to pull this off? She has a capture prog, so that's not a problem, but does the computer need a codec to read the DV .avi, and what sort of drivers does it need if I am transferring via firewire. She says that she's installed all the programs that came on the cd with the camcorder, but her computer still doesn't recognize the camcorder when she has it plugged in. I don't remember having any problems like this when I started doing my home movies on my computer, and so I really don't know why it's not working for her. Suggestions?

[redwudz]

What OS? You can use AVIcodec to see if a DV codec is present. Look under codecs & filters for 'dvsd', that's the DV codec. Then check Device Manager to see that a 1394 device is present.

[Tommyknocker]

The only way I can think of is to turn her computer completely off, make sure the camera is plugged into the fire wire port.

Turn on the camera, then turn on the computer. This step has be done at the same time, as cameras like to turn themselves off if turned on and neglected for a time.

The computer, once booted, should detect the camera. If it does not, there is a camera setup section in the console settings.

[AarontheRipper]

They are running XP on their computer, which is why I was a little surprised to find that the computer didn't automatically recognize it. I will give your suggestions a shot and get back to you. Thanks to all.

[AarontheRipper]

Okay, here's the update. I had my mom download and open AVIcodec and she had all the same codecs that I have, so I guess we can scratch a codec problem off the list. Second, I had her turn off the computer and then set up the camcorder, connect everything and turn it on, and then turn on the computer. Nothing. We went to device manager, and everything looked normal, and then we went to add hardware, and it was nowhere to be found. I'm baffled so I told her to call the place where she bought the computer, and if that doesn't work, call sony. Any other thoughts?