Vista + Canon XH G1 = detect but no capture

[Mikkell Khan]

I have been able to get my camera capturing video on a windows vista 32bit partition I made. I can agree that going to 32bit to edit is not an option as my hardware runs at its best in a 64bit environment.

For all those who are having trouble with this in 64bit Vista, you can download a copy of Vista 32bit corresponding to the version you have and use your cd key to run it. Microsoft allows you to use your CD KEY for a 32bit version of vista as well.

Whenever I need to capture video I boot into the 32bit vista and use a program like HDVsplit to do my capturing and then come back in 64bit Vista to do my editing.

For now, it works and I get the job done. If anyone gets any updates on the firewire working for 64bit, please post it here. 🙂

[David Bilodeau]

Has anyone else had any positive results with HDV capture on Vista 64-bit since this was posted?

I am in the process of opening a support case with Microsoft about their IEEE 1394 Firewire driver. After several months working with Sony Camera Engineering, we have concluded that the native 64-bit 1394 driver that ships with Vista 64 is the issue.

I will keep you posted on my progress. I am hoping that Microsoft will take this issue and run with it, and I have a Sony Engineering case # to give Microsoft so the guys in the back room can go figure out the fault in the driver and, hopefully, issue a hotfix.

[David Bilodeau]

This evening after I opened the Microsoft ticket I remembered that an old PC of mine had an add-on 3-port Firewire card.

I pulled that card, installed it into my new 64-bit Gateway, and booted. The O/S found the card and installed the driver.

I then attempted video capture of some HDV footage, both with Sony’s Picture Motion Browser (updated for 64-bit) and Sony Vegas Capture 8.1 for 64-bit.

In both cases, the software captured video and audio just fine (woo hoo!) but would not do a video preview.

Further, Sony Vegas’ HDV capture plug in behavior is strange.

When you click the Capture button, instead of locking in the ‘pressed’ mode, it returns to the ‘unpressed’ mode but the footage captures – without preview but with audio playing back.

Also, through out this whole time the camera’s controls – play, FF, Rew, pause – worked fine but the capture would fail after a few seconds.

This add-in card is a FireWave Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller, whereas the builtin Firewire is a non-branded OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller.

Somehow, that seems to have made the difference, or else installing a new 1394 controller somehow refreshed the driver in some way to make the interfaces start working.

In both cases the driver version is 6/21/2006, version # 6.0.6001.18000. When I drill down in Device Manager to the two 1394 devices, I notice some differences in the Details tab dropdown – some items do not exist in the ‘built-in’ 1394 controller, and in some cases what is there between the two show different, so this is a clue that the way the drivers and the devices are related are different from each other.

Still, even with the functional capture, the HD CAM does not show up in the Imaging Devices in Device Manager when the camera is in HDV mode for capture, so I have to presume this has something to do with why video preview does not work.

Perhaps you will find success with your 64-bit Vista and 64-bit VEGAS 8.1 with a true Texas Instruments 1394 Card. I got this one in a surplus bin for $20 awhile back (the only reason I remember that is because it was a bargain)

[Mark Thompson]

I had this problem with Canon XH G! when trying to capture to network drive it did not work as speed was not fast enough – when went to USB drive captured fine

Now trying to capture with vista 32 bit on laptop as am going away and cannot get preview as capture – but seems to capture OK

[David Bilodeau]

Windows 7 64-bit IEEE 1394 capture preview with Vegas 9.0c 64-bit is completely fixed.

Microsoft fixed the 1394 driver and Vegas is able to preview correctly during a capture.

[Pat Keough]

Interestingly enough, I am running Vegas 10 on Windows7 64bit and still have this exact problem with my Canon XHG1s. If I hit play on the camera and then start up the Sony Capture software, it works.

I tried updating the MS 1394 driver but it says I have the most current. I am up to date with my windows updates as well.

If it’s fixed, I am definately missing something.

[David Bilodeau]

Since I posted originally I’ve learned that if the 1394 Firewire card has the TI chipset, it will work but if it has a non-TI chip set, it may or may not (probably not).

Turns out I did have a second card with the TI chip set and it works just fine with Windows 7 and Vegas 10, 64-bit but the built-in firewire interface on my PC will not capture.