Capture from Sony Camcorder/Firewire connection stopping in 4-12 seconds

[tepeco]

Previously and since about 5 days ago, using my Sony Handycam TRV 530, this only happened once or twice in a session of capturing and I simply chalked it up to a hiccup in the signal, but yesterday, it became a problem. I've tried it on 3 different PCs using a firewire connection (same cable) and capturing with Cyberlink DVD Suite and also Ulead's Movie Factory 6 PLUS. On one machine, the capture lasts for 5 seconds consistently, then stops. On the other 2 machines, capture lasts for 12 seconds before stopping. That is using both programs. The short recordings play just fine. Both programs recognize the camcorder when attached and the cam can be controlled through the programs.

I then switched to my older but more powerful Adobe Premiere V6.5 and was surprised when capture worked just fine using the same firewire connection between cam and PC. Went back to ULEAD and Cyberlink, no change, still screwed up. I might add that I tried 4 different video tapes, each was a High 8 analog recording. This camcorder has logged 500+ hours of use as a transfer machine, but working through one program and not working through two others, and on multiple machines, puzzles me. Any suggestions?

-larry

[gadgetguy]

I only ever use WinDV for capsfer, so I don't know what the problem might be. Is it possible those apps are trying to encode to the project format on the fly?

[JohnnyMalaria]

So it works with Premiere on the same system that has the problem with the other apps?

Any Nero/Roxio/Pinnacle crap installed?

[minidv2dvd]

first clean the cams heads. then try windv. set it to type II avi and discontinuity to 0. start a capture and watch to see if dropped frames are reported at the beginning. if so it's most likely a crinkle or the tape getting old and losing it's magnetic strength or a slight misalignment of the head to the track on the tape. you always pre-roll the tape in the cam and don't record anything important at the beginning anyway, right?

[filmboss80]

AFAIK, Ulead accepts Type-1 DV avi files, while Premiere 6.5 only accepts Type 2.

Also, make sure you capture only to a dedicated video drive, not your PC's boot drive. The drive should be formatted as NTFS, not FAT32.