XP driver for Panasonic Mini DV Camcorder?

[broox]

Please help. My old desktop with WinME recognizes my Panasonic mini DV camcorder through windv no problem, but my new desktop has XP and will not recognize the camera. I've emailed panasonic and gotten no response, I've searched all over their site and the internet and found no XP drivers for Panasonic Camcorders. There was one fix on Microsoft's site but it related to SP1, I've got SP2 and the fix didn't work. Please help! Thanks!

[thevoelk]

If you go into Device Manager, do you see the device listed under scanners and cameras, with a yellow exclamation point over it? Or is it listed under Other Devices (it may say unknown device or a generic Camera)?

BTW, list the model number, you may get lucky and someone here may the drivers for you.

[redwudz]

If you are talking about a Firewire driver, it's built into XP, you don't need to add it.

[broox]

It's a panasonic PV DV201 and it's listed in the device manager under "other devices" as "AV/C Subunit." Under the driver tab it says "no driver installed." Automatic search for driver yields no results. Any ideas?

[thevoelk]

I found it on Panasonic's site. It's a mass driver for several models. PM me with your email address and I'll shoot it over tomorrow at work (even with DSL it will take a while to send). It's about 13 MB, make surew you have the space free.

[Supreme2k]

How are you hooking it up? I've plugged in (my 401) to numerous PCs with the firewire cable and they had no problem recognizing the camera (no SP, SP1 & SP2).

I think that there's an XP driver for the USB still camera, but I have a memory card reader (which is faster), so I don't bother.

[broox]

I'm hooking it up through the firewire just like I did on my ME machine. The ME machine recognizes it instantly and lists it in the device manager under "Imaging Device" as "Panasonic DV Camcorder." I've never had to configure anything to get the ME machine to recognize the camera. I'm sure I'm missing something simple here.

[thevoelk]

Broox,
I sent you the raw driver (857KB). It's actually a setup program, not the drivers itself.

[broox]

Hey everybody, I finally fixed my problem, and I'd thought I'd post it here so that anyone that searches for this problem in the future can find this and the solution that worked for me. The trick was to manually install a generic driver. The camera was listed in the system device manager under "other devices" as "AV/C Subunit." Under the driver tab it said "no driver installed." I made it work by choosing to "update driver" and choosing the driver myself by choosing "install from a list or specific location". Then choose "don't search I will choose the driver to install." I found it under "Sound Video and Game controllers" and then under Panasonic (I think Generic might work too) and chose "Panasonic Tape Device." Quite simple really.

I hope this will help someone someday. Thanks again to everyone for their help, I really appreciate it!