No sound while capturing from Sony Handycam to PC

[Tony11]

I've got an older Sony Handycam (DCR-PC101e) and am trying to capture the tape to my Acer laptop via USB. I don't have the CD with the Pixela ImageMixer software that apparently came with the camcorder but I have Windows Movie Maker and Cyberlink Power Producer on the laptop.

However, Power Producer doesn't even recognize the camcorder and with WMM I can capture but the video is in really bad quality and most importantly there's no sound!

I read in one of the other threads here that capturing via USB usually gives you worse quality than Firewire but I don't think that would solve the 'no audio' problem, would it?
Do I absolutely need the Sony software?

Any suggestions are appreciated!

[aedipuss]

for most cams usb is for still picture transfer only. so yes firewire might be the answer. and if you use firewire you don't need the sony software at all. transfer using the free windv program.