Try an alternative capture program (just as a comparison)... download the trial of Scenalyzer.

Thanks, Bill. Do you think a program like Registry Mechanic would work?

Thanks, Liam, I'll save that as a last resort. Hopefully, I won't have to!

It may work better than the built-in regedit. Programs like the one you mention look for "orphaned" lines in your Registry that are just sitting there not doing anything, because no application is any longer linked to them.

Are you positive that the DSR-30 worked in Vegas 5 (or MovieMaker, or say Premiere; all use the same MSFT driver) under XPSP2? There have been many reports of 1394 problems with XPSP2 and I can confirm that the DSR-30 can be affected on some systems. This is not due to something we installed with any of our apps, V6 included, it is a problem with XPSP2's DV drivers and has been widely reported for many months.

Is rolling back to SP1 an option for you, at least for test purposes?

Yes, the DSR-30 worked under version 5, but I didn't have SP2 under version 5, that was required when I installed version 6.

Questions:
How do I roll back to SP1?
What do I, and others do who use the DSR-30, do when V6b comes out?

[EDIT]
Don't know what happened, but when I rebooted, the system now recognized the DSR-30, but when I try to capture now I get the following:

"The current device has had a communications failure. Please dismiss this dialogue box, and then recycle the power on the device."

When I do the same thing happens.

[EDIT #2]
It recognizes the camera now. I can preview video thru the DSR-30 to my external monitor, just not capture.

"I didn't have SP2 under version 5, that was required when I installed version 6"

XPSP2 is not required by and is not installed by Vegas 6, it is a Microsoft Windows update that will install automatically if you Windows have auto-updates turned on. Search Windows help for "system restore" to learn how to do a system rollback.

Okay, I did a system restore back to April 1 (how appropriate!), but I'm still having the same issues.

Jay, have you tried the procedure on Microsoft's site titled How to remove Windows XP Service Pack 2 from your computer?

Mike

Yes, and when I did, I was instantly reminded of why I had to install SP2 to begin with. I had install a 320GB hard drive. Under SP1 a drive that size wasn't recognized. So now I'm back to square one, or nearly.

SP2 is reinstalling right now.

Thanks, Mike.

[EDIT]
Problem was this didn't start until AFTER I had installed Vegas 6! Microsoft says, "Well I can tell you that service pack two wouldn't cause any issues with this. Service Pack 2 is updates and upgrades aimed totally at security. Firewall, Pop-up blocker, infromation bar, etc..."

I have Vegas 4, 5 and 6 installed and Window XPSP2. No problems. Perhaps a repair install or a complete reinstall of Windows XP?

Guy, are you using the DSR-30?

Last night, I downloaded and installed Registry Mechanic in an effort to implement Bill's suggestion to clean up the registry. It found something like 390 some odd problems in the registry and fixed them all. Now, my system runs much smoother and programs load much, much faster. But, unfortunately, this did not fix my problem altogether.

Next step was to contact Microsoft, since someone at Sony suggested it was an issue with SP2. Mark at MS said SP2 had nothing to do with it, as I quoted him in a previous post. He suggested it was a driver issue with the capture card. I tried to update the driver but was told that I had the most current driver.

Oddly enough, I can use the DSR-30 for viewing video on my external monitor for color correction and like tasks. However, I am still unable to capture. When I try, I still get the "The current device has had a communications failure. Please dismiss this dialogue box, and then recycle the power on the device" message. This is quite perplexing.

So, it appears that Vegas is able to send a signal out to the monitor through the capture card and DSR-30, but it is unable to take in a signal, as in capturing video. Is this indicitive of something that I am not technically inclinded enough to recognize? Is the capture card (ADS Pyro) the link in the chain that is the issue? Why did this happen after I installed Vegas 6???

Jay,
not that this is going to help a lot but I've had issues with the DSR-30 just running Win2K and Vegas 4. It's a very old deck and I suspect uses early 1394 chips. It'd finally work after I disconnected every other 1394 device. I've had the same problem with at least one other device and although I don't remember which model it wasn't a Sony device. My mate who uses FCP has similar problems with the DSR-30 as well.
Bob.

Bob, this is the first time I've experienced any problems with this deck in nearly 5 years. It worked perfectly with Vegas 3, 4 and 5. Only Vegas 6 seems to have caused any problems.

I'm wondering, if I replace the capture card if that will have any effect?

I don't know if your problems have ben sorted now BUT...

I have a Sony DHR1000 deck as well as a DSR-11. A while ago I installed SP2 whist using V5 and got problems with the DHR1000 intermitantly losing coms. DSR-11 was OK. I spent ages trying to sort it out. The best I got was the capture reporting that no tape was in the deck when it clearly was (I could feel it with my finger!).

Eventually, I removed SP2 and the DHR1000 was back on line.

To further prove this, I have a second drive with SP1 on and it works fine with that and a laptop with SP2 and it fails.

THEREFORE, SP2 does impose problems with some DV devices so I can't have SP2 on my system because of this.

Given that the DHR1000 is pretty much the same beast as the DSR 30 that might explain a lot. I think the issue most likely relates to ANY firewire device that used the early chipsets, I've had the same issues with the DSR 30 and several other VCRs / cameras and at least one of them wasn't even a Sony product. All of my problems were with Win2K. Like I said if the problematic device was the ONLY 1394 device all work 100% reliably.
I suspect perhaps there is a XP SP2 issue that just doesn't sit well with the older 1394 chips in the older cameras / VCRs. Changing the firewire card in the PC is unlikely to fix this either. I'm also suspecting that the issue is not limited to VidCap either so trying another app might not help. Still you could give WMM ago, it's already on the PC if you've got XP!
Bob.