Vegas Recognizes camera, won't capture DV

eawood2 wrote on 2/6/2011, 7:28 PM

Hi all,

I'm a new Vegas Movie Studio user, and I'm hoping you can help. I'm trying to capture DV video from a Canon GL1 via firewire to a laptop running windows 7. Sony's capture software (Sony Video Capture 6.0) controls the camera just fine and I can preview audio and video when I set my in and out points before a batch capture. But when I try to capture, (either in batch or even the whole tape) - the camera will cue up to the correct timecode and start playing, but the preview screen is blank and nothing is captured. It seems to run on forever, capturing nothing, until I cancel the operation. Then it tells me that nothing was captured. What am I doing wrong!? Thanks!!!

Alex

Comments

richard-amirault wrote on 2/7/2011, 5:12 AM

Curious ... I can only guess ... I would try a different firewire cable and see what happens.

Steve Grisetti wrote on 2/7/2011, 5:39 AM

Also, make sure you have the latest version of Quicktime and make sure you've got the latest firmware and drivers for your video card, downloaded directly from the nVidia or ATI site.

You can also go to your Windows Device Manager (right-click on Computer, select Properties, then Hardware, then Device Manager). Delete the IEEE-1394 listing completely. When Windows rescans for hardware, it will install a fresh FireWire driver.

This can often repair corrupted IEEE-1394 drivers.

Tim L wrote on 2/7/2011, 9:37 AM

Any chance that you're using the "internal" capture program (intended for HDV) when you need to be using the "VidCap" (external) capture program for capturing standard DV?

I think (but I'm not positive) that when using the "wrong" capture program the software will control the camera just fine, but the HDV capture is looking for an HDV stream and will ignore any DV steam coming in, and vice-versa.

Rainer wrote on 2/7/2011, 1:21 PM

Firewire problems are very common on Windows 7. Mostly this is a driver issue. If you haven't already, first change to windows 7 Legacy firewire drivers (Google for instructions). If that doesn't work, and with on-board firewire it often doesn't, contact the manufacturer and see if they can point you a driver. Some people have reported success using HP drivers, even if they don't have HP laptops.

eawood2 wrote on 2/8/2011, 7:08 PM

Thanks for the suggestions - what a hassle. I haven't had time to try the fixes yet, but maybe this weekend. It's annoying - I have a Sony laptop - you would think that would up the odds that it might work with Sony's editing software. I haven't missed my mac until now. :(

musicvid10 wrote on 2/8/2011, 7:33 PM

I have a Sony laptop with Vista, and DV capture through its built-in Firewire (a dying breed), works perfectly.

The capture options in Vegas come in two flavors. DV and HDV. Make sure you have the right one selected.