windows 7 64 bit no firewire capture

Graham_H wrote on 9/5/2010, 7:49 AM
Hello everyone, I have bought a new computer as my old one had problems. The new one is windows 7 64bit.
Everything seemed to be working fine editing and saving etc. I find that capture using firewire does not work. The capture utility controls the camcorder transport - Canon HV30 but nothing is seen or captured in the window. I tried running in 32bit XP or vista mode with little improvement . I can somtimes reconnect and it works for a time but if I rewind to a blank piece of tape it stops working again.
Anybody had this problem? I am rapidly developing bald patches and hair on the floor...making a mess
Regards
Graham Hilton

Comments

Rainer wrote on 9/5/2010, 3:37 PM
Hi Graham, the bad news and the good news is that almost everyone switching to Win 64 has had that problem. The first approach is to try legacy firewire drivers (google for detailed instructions). Motherboards with on board firewire seem to have issues - there are bios changes that can help, but nothing works as well as installing a pci firewire card (mostly under $10).
Graham_H wrote on 9/6/2010, 3:26 AM
Rainer, Thanks very much for the reply. At least I'm not alone...
The problem is that I have been using an HP laptop very succesfully to edit with Vegas. However that developed a problem with the mother board affecting the DVD drive and the cost was quite high to have the motherboard replaced so I decided to get another HP laptop, much higher spec, 4 gig ram 500gig fast hard drive, better graphics card etc. But with windows 7 64bit....I upgraded the old laptop to win 7 32 bit earlier because I never liked Vista and that worked fine until the motherboard developed a fault. I suppose not much chance with drivers for a laptop, I will play around with it. The only thing that springs to mind is to install win 7 32 bit. What do you think?
Thanks again
Graham
Rainer wrote on 9/6/2010, 3:30 PM
Hi Graham, the legacy drivers are included with Windows 7, so definitely give them a try first. Go to the Device Manager, find the firewire device and switch the driver to the one that has "Legacy" at the end of the name. Win 7 32 bit may have fewer problems and since VMS is only 32 bit and you only have 4gig ram you are not going to lose performance with VMS, but there's no guarantee.
Graham_H wrote on 9/7/2010, 1:15 AM
I tried the legacy drivers Rainer with no improvement sadly. I even went on the HP "helpline" which is notorious for " not help". I was having a running battle with the person at the other end, typing at each other. I could sense he/she did not understand firewire. I got quite a few BS answers then eventually they realised I was not in the US (UK here) and said they did not have the spec of my machine (firewire is firewire in any country) Eventually, I think it was a "she" said I need some specific drivers from Canon for my HV30 to enable it to work with 64 bit..
I have left a message with Canon UK support to see what they come up with.
I should have mentioned that I am running a trial of Pro 9 64bit version with the same results - capture not working
Watch this space....
Rainer wrote on 9/7/2010, 3:36 PM
hi Graham, I don't see how Canon will be able to help, but who knows? I'm not familiar with your precise laptop, but I suspect the problem is on board firerwire on the motherboard. There's a range of possible solutions. If you are semi confident about touching the BIOS, see if there's AHCI turned on and try turning it off. If that doesn't work, try turning it off first and reloading windows. As you suggested, Win 7 32 might work, as more likely might XP. In hardware you could go to an external firewire capture device with USB transfer. But you probably have an empty PCMIA slot and I think your best bet is to try a PCMIA firewire card.
Graham_H wrote on 9/8/2010, 3:03 AM
Thank again for your help Rainer, well I contacted the UK HP telephone support who try much harder. We upgraded the bios but no improvement. Canon cant help they say my HV30 is not listed as compatible with Win 7 even though it works fine on32bit and Vista 32bit. I could not see any reference to AHCI in the bios, so confused there. Sony suggested I disable all the start up stuff to see if there was some sort of conflict but that did not work. I find that although flaky the Pro9 version will work after a fashion. so that leaves either going back to 32bit which will cost more money or a PCMIA card which wil also cost money. I'm not sure but I think I heard bad things about those cards but not really sure.
For your info my laptop is an HPdv6-2113sa
The saga coninues....
MSmart wrote on 9/8/2010, 7:51 AM
Graham, take a look at this thread, it looks like HV30guy's post on April 12 has helped a few people:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7pictures/thread/e57fccb9-4077-45ae-a916-7ba1828764b0

Good luck.
Graham_H wrote on 9/8/2010, 3:38 PM
Hello Msmart, well I'll be hornswaggled....I'm in the UK and I checked your reply just before turning in for the night. Guess what..it works!
Yabadaba doo...thanks you very much and many thanks to HV30guy too.
It was well worth going to bed late just for the piece of mind. What is slightly annoying is the HP helpline people know nothing about it.
You've made a happy man very old...or more likely an old man very happy...thanks once again.
Graham_H wrote on 9/8/2010, 3:40 PM
Rainer, check the link above from MSmart, it appears to have cured the problem...yippee!
MSmart wrote on 9/8/2010, 4:41 PM
Super!! That's great!

I hope you have (had by the time you read this) sweet dreams.