Is your firewire card disabled for some reason in the system properties?

When you plug in the camera does the box pop up asking you if you want to capture video using Vegas?

I have fought this problem for well over 2 years and I finally gave up and bought a JVC tape deck. I have a Sony TRV900 that would occassionally be recognized by my XP Pro system but more often then not it wouldn't. It finally gave up a few weeks back which was the motivation for buying the tape deck.

I can give you a couple of things to try that may help:

1. Disconnect any other device you have connected to your Firewire bus. Boot up in this configuration. Try it with and without the camera connected. Try it with and without the camera on.

As far as I can see Firewire is a bus in name only since conflicts on my system are more common than cooperation. For example, when I had my TRV900 connected to the firewire bus my Maxtor 1-Touch would suddenly dissappear even when the system did not recognize my Sony camera. I finally gave up and went USB with the Maxtor and that solved the problem for awhile.

2. Check to see if you have the Microsoft drivers installed for your Firewire port. You should be useing a Microsoft driver version 5.1.2535.0 or something like that.

If that is not the case, make sure that you have msdv.inf in your Windows inf directory. This is the inf file that will install the correct firewrire driver. You cannot install your firewire driver without this inf file.

3. The cable is always a possibility so you have to check that out. I personally have never seen a bad firewire cable but I suppose there are some out there.

4. Read this thread:
Firewire Problem Thread

You will see some comments by myself and JohnMeyer and a link to a possible fix from Microsoft. I tried the fix and it, like other solutions, worked for awhile. It could work for you. Worth a try.

Good luck. The JVC deck is about $900 in the LA area.

Assuming I'm screwed : )

What is the least expensive way to get my DV tape into raw PC files I can get into Vegas?

Is there an IDE type drive that can just drop a tape into a file?

Any way other than 1394/firewire?

So you plug it in turn it on and absolutely nothing happens? Nothing in device manager under imaging devices? Any unidentified devices in device manager when you have this thing hookedup?

Is this a new Dell?

Nothing happens.

I bought this Dell 5150 JUST for using vegas because it had a built in 1394/firewire port which I THOUGHT would eliminate conflict troubles : (

Is there any way to get the tape into files without going through 1394/firewire?

Time is not on my side.

I'd even pay a service to dump me some files onto a hard drive. (USB hard drive that is) But i'd rather use some device with ANY other format than firewire at this point.

Also, are tapes interchangable?

Can I take a tape recorded in my sony vx2000 and have someone with a working firewire setup convert the tape using any cheap DV camcorder?

Thx for any help : )

Have you taken a look at this?

http://www.custcenter.com/cgi-bin/sonypictures.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=306&p_created=989816400&p_sid=DURX95hh&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD02NzImcF9wYWdlPTE*&p_li=

It really sounds like a preference setting on either the camera or the computer. Have you enabled DV device control in Capture? Darryl

Thank you but I have tried.

Would really like a solution from going to DV tape to file without touching 1394/Firewire.

Anyone know?

Unless you have a faulty firewire card it should work. When you go to device manager does your firewire card show up? When you when you check properties is it disabled? Have you reloaded the driver for the firewire card? What firewire card are you using? Which PCI slot do you have it in? When you check preferences>video device>drop down list for devices, can you flind firewire and set? There is no better way to load video to Vegas. People have had problems using monitor control cards for capture. You might also check your firewire cord from the camera to the firewird card.