I can't capture HDV from my HP laptop

Laurence wrote on 2/23/2010, 11:51 AM
I can't capture HDV video from my HDV laptop no matter what program I use. The laptop has Windows 7 64 on it but I couldn't capture with Vista 64 either. I can go through all the motions and even control the camera transport but no actual video is passed and the capture never actually happens. I have done many searches and this seems to be a common problem. For now I am getting around this by capturing from an old P4 we have laying around, but I shouldn't have to do this.

On the searches I have done I have found that it seems to be related to the firewire chipset the manufacturer uses and seems to be a problem that many different makes of laptops share. Anyone have any insight that may help me?

Comments

fherr wrote on 2/25/2010, 8:27 AM
I'm afraid all I can do is commiserate - I have the same problem, which I've posted about here and here.

I think you're right, it's likely the faulty Ricoh chipset used for the firewire port on these laptops. I've tried contacting HP four ways so far - phone, chat, email and forum - and they are either in denial or their front-line help staff has no idea, because no one would even acknowledge the problem, let alone suggest any solution.

My laptop is only a few months old, so I will probably try returning it to HP next. I wish I could find a solution, but there doesn't seem to be one. I found an interesting thread about the limitations of my laptop on the Cakewalk forums, which confirmed my own experience but again offers no solution, unfortunately.
MSK wrote on 2/25/2010, 8:47 AM
I found this post on a different forum related to firewire audio hardware. It might help with your issue though:

1. Right click on the firewire host controller entry in the device manager and choose Update Driver Software…
2. Browse your computer for the driver
3. This should let you select a driver on a list of device drivers on your computer
4. Select 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller (Legacy) and then Next

Hope that helps you.
Laurence wrote on 2/25/2010, 11:15 AM
That is but one of the many things I've tried. Thanks though. I suppose that what I need is a SxS firewire card with a real name brand firewire chip.
Laurence wrote on 2/25/2010, 2:13 PM
There's a guy on Creative Cow that says he fixed this by replacing the generic 1394 driver with a specific Ricoh 1394 driver:

http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/162/870621

I can't seem to find this driver anywhere though. He said his was on his Windows 7 install disc, but I can't see anything like that on my Windows 7 64 bit install disc.
Laurence wrote on 2/25/2010, 4:33 PM
Woo Hoo! I got it working! Here's what I did. I went to the device manager / update driver software. Selected the bottom option: "Browse my computer for driver software". Then I selected the "Let me pick from a list of drivers on my computer" option, then deselected the "show compatible hardware" tab so that I could try non-recommended drivers. I tried the Ricoh driver but it didn't work either. I got lucky on my next try. I went to "Texas Instruments" because I knew that chip worked and one of the options was "Sony CXD3222 OHCI i.LINK(IEEE 1394) PCI Host Controller". I tried that and it worked right away! This is so cool. This firewire issue was the one and only thing I didn't like about this computer.

Edit: Well it was working last night. This morning I thought I would check for dropped frames and HDV capture no longer works no matter which driver I try.

Does anyone know who makes whatever low budget IEEE chip HP and Dell use?