HV20 - Problem connecting to PC with FireWire

[Stefan_hv20]

Here's a litte problem I have with my PC or my HV20.

I have now two times successfully connected my camera to my Dell Laptop thru a PCMCIA Firewire card. All other times I tried were failed.

When I connect the firewire card to my laptop, Windows XP recognize the card properly ans a little sound is played to confirm the conection.

Then I connect the HV20 to the firewire card. Again, Windows recognize the video cam and a little sound is played to confirm.

Now here's the weird thing....
The two times I could get video from the cam, a little window popped up to select witch program to open. (The same like you put in a CD or memorycard, you know...)
But now, most of the times there comes nothing and Adobe Premiere (Elements) capture windows tells me the camera is off-line.

HOWEVER...
When I look at the HV20 camera display, I see the little symbol that indicates a proper connection to the PC????

Doed anyone else have had problems connecting the HV20 to their PC?

Besides connecting to a PCMCIA FireWire card, I also have a Docking Station for my laptop with a PCI slot in wich I have installed a PCI FireWire card.

In both cases, connected to the PCMCIA card or the PCI card, the problems is the same.

I will try to buy a new 6-4pin Firewire cabel the first thing next week and just can HOPE that would solve the problem.

The specs of the laptop are:

Dell Latitude D600 (bought in 2004)
1,7GHz Centrino processor
512MB Memory (I have ordered an upgrade for 2Gig of memory )
80GB harddisk 4200rpm
4x DVD +/-R Burner

[bluegrass]

Stefan

I have been troubleshooting computer problems for longer than I want to think about and have always used the "divide & conquer" way of troubleshooting.

1. where is the problem - cable, card, or camcorder. Eliminate which is the easiest one to do. Firewire cables aren't too expensive.

2. maybe you have a friend that has a camcorder to firewire setup that you could plug your camcorder into or get him to plug his into your setup.

3. when you have proven which two of the three pieces definitely are not causing the problem, you have conquered the troubleshooting process and know where the problem lies.

4. knowing which piece is defective is most of the battle.

5. one very bad gottcha which occurs very rarely but can; is when more than one piece in the chain is defective. honestlly, i have troubleshot problems down to where there wasn't anything left that could be the problem except for the frame or case & yes I fixed a problem with a new case before. (bad ground - who knows but crazy things can happen)

The above approach has shortened my troubleshooting process and ended up with good results more than once. I even used it in the Navy to help a radar tech fix a problem that I had absolutely no knowledge of. We went through the process until I told the tech that it looks like a bad connector in the unit high up on a mast. We climbed the mast while underway in somewhat stormy weather and removed the cover off the unit and found a defective connector. This approach doesn't have to be only for troublshooting hardware. Use it for processes that involve configuration settings and software problems. Just like we know there is a deficiency with our Canon that may someday be fixed by twisting a couple bits around in the firmware. A light was shined on that by folks like us here on this forum.

hope this helps. i know if you're isolated out in tim buck two and have no one to share testing parts with, you might need another approach. if this is the case let me know & i'll try and come up with something.

[Stefan_hv20]

Thanks for the answer!

I have posted a question on to a Dutch Forum to see if someone lives near by me to help me out.
So I can check my cam on his/her PC and I can try his/her cam on my laptop...

To be continued...:hv20-smilie03:

[bluegrass]

Thanks for the answer!

I have posted a question on to a Dutch Forum to see if someone lives near by me to help me out.
So I can check my cam on his/her PC and I can try his/her cam on my laptop...

To be continued...:hv20-smilie03:

after rereading that you essentially tried connecting your camera to two different firewire cards - the PC & the laptop, the problem is leaning hard towards it being the camera. Mal and others have helped a little troubleshooting this with some others. i think one mentioned a very basic thing like the settings in the camera. try with the camera plugged to the powerpack to make sure that you have sufficient power and of course make sure the camcorder is turned on and in the play mode & not the camera mode. you would want a tape in the camera also.

can you think of anything else Mal? i wouldn't think any settings such as HD or DVD mode would stop it from seeing the camera. you might not have too many options for capturing HD so you might make a short SD clip and try a different app such as movie maker if your on a PC.

you certainly don't want to wait to find out if it's the camera so long that they won't take it back for an exchange. i'm really not sure how Canon handles warranty.

edit: forget about what I said using an SD clip. i guess the HD cameral announcement is built into the camera and possibly a non HD software app won't recognize the camera. maybe someone else can verify this. i personally haven't tried it but I might get a chance later today.

[Stefan_hv20]

Hi all,

Thanks for all the good and quick answers to my question / problem.

I've tried something out. I put the PCI card for my docking station and installed it into my old 1.7GHz Pentium4 Desktop PC.
With only 256 MB very, very slow these days, but just for a quick test???

I've connected the camera to the PC after the card has been installed.
First time, the camera has been recognised properly and everything seemds fine.

I've installed Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 (trial) and guess what....
SAME PROBLEM AGAIN...

In the capture window I see the message the camera is offline.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e39/Stef_r/2007-05-28_164151.jpg

But once I go into the device control settings to see the status and settings, I get the message the camera is ONLINE...
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e39/Stef_r/2007-05-28_164052.jpg

If I turn OFF the camera, the status changes as expected to OFFLINE.
When I turn the camera ON, the status is changed to ONLINE.

Seemds like me the connection does work but for some reason, somethings goes wrong somewhere....

PS I'm still waiting for a reply at an other Dutch forum to check out my camera at an other PC to see whats happend there...

CAN IT BE MY BOTH PC'S ARE JUST TOO SLOW FOR IT???????

[Leo168]

Hi Stefan,
I have had similar problem on a desktop using WinXP SP1. The first time I plug the HV20 in Ulead VideoStudio 11 recognized the HV20 right away. I was rewinding the tape via the software and than my battery drained (stupid me I forgot to plugin the power cord), When I plug the HV20 back in and reboot the computer, the PC doesn't recognized the HV20. I plugin a Sony TRV17 and Videostudio recognized with no problem and I was able to capture. I unplug and plug the HV20 and reboot and plugin numerous and finally it worked, unfortunately I can't tell you why, I can't figured it out. I can only capture in DV 720X480, Uleadstudio 11 doesn't recognise my HV20 as a HDV, I can't get HDVsplit to recognise it either. I wonder if it is my iEEE card. Any suggestions are welcome. I really like to capture at 1920x1080 and post some images

[Stefan_hv20]

Well, I guess I have a solution...
I've tried my cam on an other computer (MAC) and it worked fine.
Came home and still Adobe wouldn't recognise the cam.

Because the computer does react when connecting the cam, I went to a computer shop to buy a version of Pinnacle Studio 11 PLUS (Ultimate).
After installing the software, the cam worked exelent!
No need to change settings or anything else, just great pictures!

So I guess I've done something wrong with Adobe, but now I'm just trying to learn Pinnacle instead of Adobe.
One big advantage.... I do have a study book with Pinnacle now!

Thanks for all the answers!
Oyeah, and to LEO168: I have both computer and laptop installed with Win XP SP2...

[Filo]

Well, I guess I have a solution...
I've tried my cam on an other computer (MAC) and it worked fine.
Came home and still Adobe wouldn't recognise the cam.

Because the computer does react when connecting the cam, I went to a computer shop to buy a version of Pinnacle Studio 11 PLUS (Ultimate).
After installing the software, the cam worked exelent!
No need to change settings or anything else, just great pictures!

So I guess I've done something wrong with Adobe, but now I'm just trying to learn Pinnacle instead of Adobe.
One big advantage.... I do have a study book with Pinnacle now!

Thanks for all the answers!
Oyeah, and to LEO168: I have both computer and laptop installed with Win XP SP2...

Interesting this new soft Stephan_HV20. Are you able to capture both DV and HDV and to what format of file ?
Also, can one export these files to avi format ?
And finally, how many video and audio tracks are available. :hv20-smilie64:
Presently using Adobe PrEl 2.0 but it cannot capture HDV; version 3.0 does capture HDV but becomes sooo sloooow that I had to dump it for refund. I understand Pin11 Ult. will capture HDV and then allow to export movie to ordinary DVD. What would be nice would be for me to capture in Pin11 Ult. and export the avi files to PrEl 2.0 to finalize DVD. BTW Win Mov Maker does capture DV from HV20 in avi format. Pin11 Ult would cost, what? , around $125, maybe less ?

Thanks for answering

filo

[cswillia]

Hi everyone,
It sounds like I'm having the same issue as some of you. So, here's my issue: When I first got my HV20, I shot 1.5 minutes in HDV mode (I think, but it might have been DV), then grabbed it off the miniDV onto my PC using HDVSplit. I then bought Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0, shot some more footage (this time for sure with HDV mode and a lapel mic), and now can't capture it using either HDVSplit or Adobe. I set my camcorder to "Play" mode, start either HDVSplit or Adobe and try to capture, but it says there is no device connected or it's not recognized. I read somewhere that this could be due to the fact that I recorded HDV and DV on one miniDV. But, I don't see why that would do anything. Does anyone have any tips? Thanks.

[Filo]

Hi everyone,
It sounds like I'm having the same issue as some of you. So, here's my issue: When I first got my HV20, I shot 1.5 minutes in HDV mode (I think, but it might have been DV), then grabbed it off the miniDV onto my PC using HDVSplit. I then bought Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0, shot some more footage (this time for sure with HDV mode and a lapel mic), and now can't capture it using either HDVSplit or Adobe. I set my camcorder to "Play" mode, start either HDVSplit or Adobe and try to capture, but it says there is no device connected or it's not recognized. I read somewhere that this could be due to the fact that I recorded HDV and DV on one miniDV. But, I don't see why that would do anything. Does anyone have any tips? Thanks.

You have to use firewire to capture DV and HDV video. USB and soft that comes with unit are for photos only. Was using PrEl 3.0 with captured HDV. Had to return soft because rendering was for ever and I could not stand waiting that long. Now on my PC XP only Win Mov Maker will capture DV to avi files that I use in PrEl 2.0 giving nice results. HDV is in it's debut and I think that you must have a HDV drive and HDTV to use it. A minority of people use it presently but this will change rapidly.
I'm looking towards Pinnacle Ultimate 11 that's supposed to capture without trouble, nice features and good price; but you'll see by the previous message that more info is needed.
Hope this helps !
BTW what make of lapel mike were you using ? Does it work well ?

filo

[Volstag]

My observations:

If I set the HV20 to DV Locked, my system will recognize the camera each and every time it's attached (via firewire) to my computer. If, however, I'm shooting everything in HDV, my computer will not recognize the camera no matter what I do (though occasionally it will play a little sound when connecting or disconnecting -- so on some level it must be aware of it). Thankfully, HDVSplit has zero problem recognizing the camera, regardless of HDV/DV.

-V

[alwinian]

After ripping some of my hair out.
i installed hdvsplit,

It looked like hdvsplit is seeing my camcorder.. i haven't tried hdv mode yet, but it is seeing dv so far...

thanks for your help and posting your answers.