1394 Firewire out with Vista

Jeff B wrote on 4/29/2008, 2:52 PM
My new computer with a Vista 64bit platform will capture from all my 1394 devices (even the DVMC-DA2), but will not playback from any software, including Vegas Pro 8b, to any of them. I just spent a couple of hours going through several troubleshooting cycles before concluding the problem was with Vista. Hoping that it was a policy or permission setting, I put a pencil between my teeth so I wouldn't grind, and went onto the MS help site.

After a great deal of poking around, I ended up slamming into this page...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944149/en-us

...which clearly states that all versions of Vista do not support playing back content across the IEEE-1394 Firewire bus.

WTF???

Comments

John_Cline wrote on 4/29/2008, 3:19 PM
Well, that certainly seems to be what the article is saying. I'm generally a supporter of Windows Vista but, if true, this is pretty stupid.

I'm in Vista a lot, but my workflow is always ingesting via Firewire not running something back out. I'll have to try it on Vista64 SP1.
baysidebas wrote on 4/29/2008, 4:33 PM
Probably something to do with DRM. Pretty shitty thing to do....
rmack350 wrote on 4/29/2008, 5:02 PM
Looking around, I've seen other places where people say they have no trouble outputting over 1394 in Vista. Seems patchy, like some people have trouble and others don't.

I'm sure a few Vista users here can chime in on this.

Rob Mack
Spot|DSE wrote on 4/29/2008, 5:07 PM
Not having an issue on Vista 32.
blink3times wrote on 4/29/2008, 7:15 PM
There is something wrong with that bulletin... or its meaning is being totally misunderstood. It seems to me that if it were at all true then we would have a lot of difficulty capturing from, and writing to cams. In fact, in Vista 64 my cam shows up as "AVC" device when plugged in and there are no problems reading/writing, or controlling.
jabloomf1230 wrote on 4/29/2008, 7:34 PM
No, it does not say that you can't send data (capture) from an AVC device to the computer over Firewire. It says that you can't send data from the computer to an AVC device over Firewire. I'm not sure this is right anyway and it should be possible to check with Vegas by attaching a camcorder and using it as a 1394 preview device. I'm not going to be the volunteer, just in case MS has Vista set up to blow up the 1394 device if you disobey their commands. ;-)

Some of the other info in the MS bulletin is also incorrect. With some heavy tinkering you can also view TV from an STB connected via Firewire with Vista x86:

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/38/219448/ShowThread.aspx

The 64 bit Vista has no 3rd party STB drivers, so it is oblivious to any STB connected via Firewire. Ole' Billy Gates must have wanted to appease the TV & movie industry.
blink3times wrote on 4/29/2008, 7:46 PM
"No, it does not say that you can't send data (capture) from an AVC device to the computer over Firewire. It says that you can't send data from the computer to an AVC device over Firewire."

Right... It's saying that you can capture FROM the cam, but you can't write back TO the cam.... which is garbage. I do it all the time.

In device manager my cam (as most HD cams) is seen as a "AVC device"
Jeff B wrote on 4/30/2008, 1:57 AM
"In device manager my cam (as most HD cams) is seen as a "AVC device""
----------------------------------
So far, that's the only thing I've spotted here that might bear some looking into... In this matter, device manager lists my Sony TRV-900, my Sony DVMC-DA2, and my Panasonic PV-GS70D under "imaging devices" and not "AVC devices".

If I boot with XP on this machine, my older software installed on that drive works just fine. So it's not the hardware, it's definitely Vista, which has not only dropped support for 1394 networking, but also has stated in the link I provided in my first post that it is not supporting content being sent from the computer OUT via 1394... which is exactly the problem I'm having.

A web search on this will yield people stumped on this exact problem, content (audio devices and video devices) not streaming OUT via 1394.

Since some of you using Vista don't have this problem, it's clear that there are avenues of upgrading and/or installation sequences that, intentionally or unintentionally, obviated this Vista problem. I bought the machine with Vista pre-installed, however, so for me it's a matter of discovering how this irritating "feature" can be reversed.

This isn't a show-stopper for me, since I can use the older DV equipment off of the Vista platform, which I put here to do AVCHD. But not being able to output (by design) on 1394 just basically pisses me off, and I'd like to flip the bird at MS by finding the workaraound and publishing it as far and widely as possible.
blink3times wrote on 4/30/2008, 2:57 AM
"So far, that's the only thing I've spotted here that might bear some looking into... In this matter, device manager lists my Sony TRV-900, my Sony DVMC-DA2, and my Panasonic PV-GS70D under "imaging devices" and not "AVC devices"."

I have Vista64 and when I plug in my HC3, HC7, and HV20, they show up as just that (the name of the cam) under "Sound, Game, and video controllers". If you click on the name of the cam (for example "Canon HV20") and look on the "General" tab, it reads
"Location: AVC multifunction device"

This however is for HDV camcorders. If I switch my cams over to DV, they show up under "imaging devices" but on the general tab Iam still seeing "AVC multifunction device"

As I said before, there is something not quite right with that microsoft bulletin. My cams are clearly noted as AVC devices and I have no problems outputting to them.

I can see the bulletin maybe pertaining to cable boxes or something, although I'm not too sure how Vista would know the difference between one "AVC multifunction device" and another.... but then on the other hand, I have the Hauppage 1600 hidef tv capture card, and although it is not a firewire device, I have no problems recording hi def tv from satellite and burning to dvd.

With my experience of Vista so far, this "DRM" situation is WAY overblown. I have yet to run into a situation where "DRM" has kicked in and not allowed me to do something. Granted I have not tried things like copying a commercial Blu Ray disk, but in that circumstance, if DRM stops you in some way, then all you can say is that it is working properly.
Jeff B wrote on 4/30/2008, 6:55 AM
Blink3Times: Everything else works fine with this off the shelf Vista box, and I'm actually very happy with it for AVCHD work.

Meanwhile, the DV camcorders all interface fine, capture works great, and device control even works when trying to output to the cams from all pgms. Each pgm, however, responds differently to the fact that no content actually gets sent out via the firewire. Vegas Pro 8b hangs but can be closed without the three finger salute, VideoStudio Pro 11.5 freezes solid, ...but the best one of all is MS Movie Maker which acts as if everything is perfectly okay despite there being no content sent to the camcorder... and it will happily just sit there with the cam control working and the camcorder recording nothing for as long as I want, until I hit the stop button.

...really clever of them.

Somewhere along the line, there's probably one or more 3rd party vendor replacement(s) for whatever dll or other Vista software file causing this, thereby bypassing the 1394 output restriction. Depending on installation sequences, upgrade sequences, etc, it can obviously be bypassed.

Since I have a very recent iteration of Vista pre-installed on a new computer, however, the fact of anyone else running Vista and not having this problem probably just means that they (luckily) had other software that supplanted the restriction.

If I find any workaround, I'll post about it here.
blink3times wrote on 4/30/2008, 2:44 PM
"Meanwhile, the DV camcorders all interface fine, capture works great, and device control even works when trying to output to the cams from all pgms. Each pgm, however, responds differently to the fact that no content actually gets sent out via the firewire. Vegas Pro 8b hangs but can be closed without the three finger salute,"

Well, I'm sorry to hear that and I hope you find an answer. But I can attest that it's not vista. I can output back to the cam with Vegas7, 8 and Pinnacle studio. I don't have Ulead video studio so I can't help there.
mptribe wrote on 5/1/2008, 9:45 AM
Our church has one of those devices and I could never get it to play video back through it from vegas, on XP or Vista. I just picked up the Canopus 110, which is a similar device, and it works perfectly from Vegas to preview from Vegas through firewire. I have Vista 64-bit, and I go firewire to the canopus box then S-Video to my DVD Recorder to my TV.

I picked up the Canopus 110 from B&H for $199.95.
DCV wrote on 7/9/2008, 8:47 PM
I have a new iMac 3.06 running a fresh install of Vista SP1 and firewire preview doesn't work (Vegas Pro or DVDA). I haven't been able to get it go despite several attempts to troubleshoot the issue. This is a major problem for me as previewing to a calibrated monitor saves a ton of time in post. I've thought about starting over and installing XP to verify it's Vista and if it works upgrading from there to Vista see if the upgrade path fixes the problem or creates it.

Anyone have any other ideas or suggestions? Any iMac people out there running Vista and firewire previewing? Help!

John
Seth wrote on 7/13/2008, 1:02 PM
This is another example of why an open source OS like Linux should be considered by SCS as a desirable platform to code for; a problem like this would have been solved by the world-wide open source community in less time than this thread has taken to collectively moan about it.
blink3times wrote on 7/13/2008, 3:32 PM
"I have a new iMac 3.06 running a fresh install of Vista SP1"

Of course it's Vista and not the fact that you're running vista on a Apple..... right ;)

I'm running Vista on a PC and have no issues with firewire
blink3times wrote on 7/13/2008, 3:35 PM
"This is another example of why an open source OS like Linux "

Yes... and Lnux is just great...... so long as you limit yourself to a few VERY general pieces of hardware.
LarryP wrote on 7/13/2008, 3:56 PM
The MS article seems to be talking about "Audio Video Command" (AVC) not "Advanced Video Coding" (AVC).

Too many acronyms.
RNLVideo wrote on 7/13/2008, 7:50 PM
I'm running Vista Ultimate 32 bit on a MacBook Pro via BootCamp and I have no problems putting video out firewire back to the camera.

Rick
Seth wrote on 7/14/2008, 9:27 PM
"Yes... and Lnux is just great...... so long as you limit yourself to a few VERY general pieces of hardware. "

I'm sorry, but you're mistaken. Linux has the fastest drivers for any transfer protocol, and some of the widest out-of-the-box hardware support.
DCV wrote on 7/14/2008, 10:50 PM
RNL:

Did you upgrade from XP or is it a fresh install of Vista? Also, who makes the firewire chipset in your MacBook? Is it Agere? Agere makes the one in the iMac.

John
blink3times wrote on 7/15/2008, 4:25 AM
"I'm sorry, but you're mistaken. Linux has the fastest drivers for any transfer protocol, and....."

Yes... I had a look at that site you linked and what I see in the "compatability" column is:
"works for me"
"Somewhat"
"works Great"
.... and a few other "scientific" comments.

Just for the heck of it, I looked up Mackie.... it says "unknown".
I looked up M-Audio... it says... "does not work for me"
I looked up my other sound card (sound blaster x-fi elite pro) and it's not even listed.

So I go back to my original statement: "Yes... and Lnux is just great...... so long as you limit yourself to a few VERY general pieces of hardware."
John_Cline wrote on 7/15/2008, 5:04 AM
"Yes... and Lnux is just great...... so long as you limit yourself to a few VERY general pieces of hardware."

And no affordable (or useful) multimedia production software.
Seth wrote on 7/15/2008, 11:06 PM
@ Blink I won't waste much more time on you; If you need convincing, try this (page which describes how anyone can write a USB driver if they wish) Or this (page which describes how to make any camera transfer DV to your system over FW). Both of these documents make this 'Vista is broken!' thread seem very silly; Microsoft has 4,000 programmers, but Linux has a world (read: several times more than MS) of both programmers and users, rather, users who are also programmers. If it seems too technical for you, I'll understand, as you seem to put little thought into most of what you say. But please stop the FUD. I at least provided a link with any evidence for my claim where you seem to provide only attitude, which serves only to make your arguments look both ignorant and biased. I will not respond to any more of your inflammatory or ignorant posts. (though I will gladly respond to any thoughtful or insightful post you make)

@ John, please pick your battles a little more wisely. Affordable? AutoDesk dropped the price of Combustion to nearly the same price you would pay for Vegas Pro brand new, and that was some time ago. Combustion adds professional compositing to an NLE that could easily be used for on-line edits. The GIMP? It's designed for web-graphics, and has run on 64-bit systems cross-platform for years now. (It will support 16-bit raster files within the next 12 months which Vegas doesn't fully support, currently anyway) BTW, it's free. Remember Shake, the industry standard in compositing that Apple dropped to $500? Yeah, runs on Linux (since day 1). In fact, Linux usership of Shake is so much of a threat to Apple's own Final Cut Studio [read:Apple hardware] market that they dropped development of the tool in favor of the Apple-only 'Phenomenon', which has yet to be heard of again. Maya, the industry standard in 3D content creation? Yup, also preferred on Linux.Cinepaint? It's a close #2 to Photoshop as the industry standard in image manipulation and dust-busting for feature films (like Spiderman from Sony Pictures). Oh yeah, it's free, and it's installed on every Linux workstation at DreamWorks Animation (where I work). Why? Because every single creative employee at the studio uses Linux. (Same with Pixar, where my brother works. And Rainmaker, where my other brother works. And Tippet studios, where my other brother works.) On that note, I can use MS Outlook (flawlessly) on my Linux workstation too if I want. Know why? Because of an open source set of Windows APIs called WINE. WINE also supports Photoshop and Flash. Why? Because Adobe has worked with them to ensure compatibility. Yes, Adobe has worked with them. Adobe WANTS Linux users. And when they make Premier and After Effects available to the Linux community (it's only a matter of time), well, you'll still be moaning about how 'The only multimedia production software for Linux is Adobe' and the millions of worldwide Linux users, not to mention Adobe, will nod in agreement. That is precisely why I keep posting my experiments with Vegas and WINE. The pro apps are out there for Linux, but there is only one Vegas. Linux users would gladly pay full price for it.

This is not an anti-Windows post, nor is it an anti-Vegas post. It is a wake-up call, John. I appreciate your intelligence, which is why it never ceases to amaze me that you chafe so hard against Linux.