Pinnacle DV500 can't get audio or video

[Jeremiad]

AMD Athlon 1GHz
512MB RAM
ECS K7S5A mainboard
ATi 3D Rage IIC AGP
80GB primary
120GB secondary
Pinnacle DV500?
Windows 2K Pro, SP3
DirectX 9.0b
Premiere 6.0

Summary:

I'm trying to use what I believe is a Pinnacle DV500 to capture some old videos that I have from a VHSC camcorder, or from a VCR using an adapter tape. I cannot get video or audio in Premiere.

I have a PCI Pinnacle card, but it doesn't really seem to indicate the model number. It says 'Callisto 2.2' on the card, but that doesn't seem to mean anything. The unit does have a blue breakout box, and I am using the top row of RCAs (input) to connect to a Panasonic PV-D300D-K VHSC camera, and have also tried hooking up a VCR. I can hook the camera up to my TV or the VCR and watch the tapes, so everything else is obviously working fine. With the bottom RCAs (output) hooked up to the VCR and the input set properly, I cannot get anything to pass-through the breakout box, either.

I got DC1000 drivers with the card, but the drivers would not install even when I tried to force it, so I had to concede that this is not a DC1000. I went to Pinnacle's website and downloaded drivers for a DV500, which seemed to work insofar as Windows is concerned, but I can't get anything in Premiere (it does show a Pinnacle logo when loading Premiere) as far as a picture or audio goes. I downloaded drivers for a DV500 Plus as well, but the results have not changed.

In testing the card to see if anything else works, I hooked up my Canon ZR30 DV via one of the firewire ports on the Pinnacle card, and it does actually allow me to control the camera (play, ff, rew, etc), but I still don't get a picture or audio through Premiere. All this really does is indicate to me that the drivers do appear to be working. However, I still don't have anything getting back to the computer.

Project Settings in Premiere tells me that it is 'unable to connect to capture driver' no matter what I choose (options are QuickTime Capture, DV/IEEE 1394 Capture, Pinnacle MP2 Capture, or Pinnacle AVI Capture).

Device Control options in Premiere are DV Device Control 2.0, and Pinnacle Device Control. When I choose the former, and select my Canon camera from the list, it still comes up as 'Offline', and gives me no control. If I choose the latter, it will change to 'None' within a few seconds. This is the same as clicking 'Enable Device Control' from the Movie Capture window within Premiere. With the Firewire cable connected and the Canon turned on, I can choose the 'Canon Recorder' from the Pinnacle Device Control, and can control the camera, but I still can't see or hear the video, and of course there is nothing to record, so I can't capture anything either.

Now, maybe I'm giving too much information here and adding to the confusion, but I'm trying to be as thorough as possible. Please know that my hooking up of the DV camera was for testing purposes on the Pinnacle card only, and that I am indeed trying to capture NTSC video via the RCA connectors on the breakout box. I capture my DV videos via a firewire card on a seperate machine, but unfortunately that box does not support NTSC, which is why I picked up this Pinnacle device.

Okay, what can I add? The Device Manager is clear (shows no errors), and DirectX tests with no errors. Premiere 6.0 was installed and working before I installed the Pinnacle card, but both shortcuts (Adobe and the Pinnacle program groups) cause Premiere to load with a Pinnacle splash screen, so it doesn't seem to matter which one I choose.

The Pinnacle card is a PCI device with Pinnacle and Callisto 2.2 markings on the card. It has a daughterboard that is about a quarter of the size of the card. It has two firewire ports on the back (which are closest to the mounting screw), and a red cable that runs up to the breakout box (which is blue).

The only thing I can think of is that this might not be a DV500 card? Is there a better way to identify what model of Pinnacle this thing is?

[Fos]

"The Pinnacle card is a PCI device with Pinnacle and Callisto 2.2 markings on the card. It has a daughterboard that is about a quarter of the size of the card. It has two firewire ports on the back (which are closest to the mounting screw), and a red cable that runs up to the breakout box (which is blue). "

So it is the DC1000 or the Dc2000 , because the DV500 haven't a daughterboard. Callisto is the Revision.
There're two versions , the version which have compisite/svhs cable for conenct with the Board with the box , and the version wich you must connect the box with the card with only a connector.


The DCX000 can capture only with premiere at mpeg2@2-25mpbs
You must install the 2.0 version driver , and then 3.0 one if i remember correctly.
DC1000 with daugther board (Version 2 )
[/img]

[Fos]

Version 1 , smaller , without the Daughter card :

[Jeremiad]

Thanks for the response Fos.

My Pinnacle card does look like either of the pictures you posted. I pulled it out of the machine and snapped a picture of it.



I hope this helps.

[Fos]

I had been mistaken : that card is the DV500. What i don't know is what the daughther card does , i didn't know that it exist.... Maybe 3d Rt effects..
This is your card
http://www.videoton.ru/Pinnacle/dv500dvd.jpg

Did you download the DV500 drivers?
You can capture also with S. Live but it think that it will recompress the video... at least it was my impression using it.

[Jeremiad]

Thanks Fos.

That is the same as my card, yes. The white connectors on the right side of that card is where the daughter-board mounts, and as far as I can see it looks like it might have some extra cache memory on it, and it provides an extra firewire port so that I could easily run an extension to the front of the box instead of having to reach around to the back of the machine. My breakout box is a bit different in that it is blue, and does not have the firewire port on the bluebox.

I have downloaded and installed drivers from Pinnacle's web site for the DV500 series, and also for the DV500 Plus. They were two different downloads, so I've tried them both with the same end result. I've also tried the 3.0 drivers for the DC1000, and the combo drivers for the DC1000/2000 series with less success.

Any other searches I tried started to point in the direction of a 'hardware installer' that was included with Pinnacle Studio software which wants me to register and provide a serial number and such. I'd prefer to not install the Studio software, because I don't think I need it, and would rather work using Premiere anyway.

[Fos]

Be careful , The installl process must be in this order :

-1º Install Adobe premiere 6.0 or 6.5
-2º Install the drivers , this drivers :http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/uk/Products/Consumer+Products/Home+Video/Express...mode=documents

and then :http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/uk/Products/Consumer+Products/Home+Video/Express...mode=documents
[/list]

[Jeremiad]

Okay, it has taken me a few days worth of playing with it, but I finally got it working, so I wanted to post to update. First of all, thank you to the forum and everyone who attends here to help with problems such as these, and a special thanks to Fos for assisting me in identifying the card, and helping me to come up with a solution, which I shall condense here. I tried many things, and here is what finally worked:

I uninstalled any Pinnacle software that I could find in the Add/Remove Programs, and shut down the computer. I then removed the Pinnacle PCI card from the machine. I restarted the computer, and made sure that the Device Manager was clear, and then scanned for new hardware, just to make sure, and it found nothing. (NOTE: this is an important step. I installed the newer drivers several times without success. Removal of the card and a reboot of the machine at least once without the card seems to be necessary).

I then shut down the computer and reinstalled the Pinnacle card in the third PCI slot to ensure that it would not share with the AGP, or any other silly issue.

When Windows came up, it detected the card, and asked for drivers, so I pointed it to the DV500 directory created by the install that I had already downloaded from Pinnacle's web site (same as the link that Fos provided in the previous post), and it worked.

Then, it prompted me to insert my 'Pinnacle DCx000 driver disk'. Under the impression that I have a DV500 card, I pointed it again to the DV500 directory that the downloadable drivers had created on my main drive, but it refused to find the file it needed to install. Here is where it gets interesting. I pointed it to the DC1000 version 3.0 drivers that I had mentioned in my first post as having been provided on a burned CDR when I bought the card, and it installed. Unfortunately, the install went so fast that I couldn't read what it was, but the icon looked like a multimedia device, so when I looked in the Device Manager it displayed a 'Pinnacle DC2000 E4', which I assume must be what it installed.

At this point, I wasn't sure how it was using drivers from a DV500 and from a DV1000 at the same time, but I was glad that I still had drivers for both on my hard drive, and didn't have anything to lose if it did work. But so far, it looked like it did.

I gave it a reboot and another hardware scan just to see if it would see anything else, and it did not. Then, I installed the DV500 software, and rebooted again. Finally, I installed the 4.5a update (Fos' second link in the previous post), and rebooted again.

Finally, I have success! I still needed to go into the settings in Premiere and tell it to use the 'Pinnacle AVI Capture'every time, but it does indeed work. Also, it doesn't give me audio while doing a capture or a preview, but it does record the audio and I can hear it just fine when playing back in the timeline. A minor problem that I'm even willing to overlook, as I can hear the sound coming from the camera anyway.

Again, thanks for the help, and I hope that maybe this information might be able to help someone else in the future.

Cheers!