[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 issue is not unique to any particular camera from what I can tell. It is a problem with Vista 64 and the IEEE 1394 Firewire native Windows driver.

I have a 64-bit Vista Home Premium PC, a Sony HDR-HC9 HD camcorder and I use Sony Vegas Pro 8.1 64-bit edition.

The issue appears to be the video signal on the iLink/IEEE interface from the camera, as detected (not detected) in the driver.

I have been working with Sony camera support for several months and just today they duplicated my configuration in their U.S. labs and found that they, too, could not capture footage.

I was playing around a bit with my software, with Windows Movie Maker 64-bit, and finally got some ERRATIC capture behavior, where in one case I was able to capture HDV footage but only if I manually started the camera and then engaged the Vegas HDV Capture utility.

Alas, it only worked once and then I could not duplicate the steps to repeat a successful capture.

Sony suspects this to be the driver that is included in Vista 64, as I noted, and I have been putting pressure on them to put pressure on Microsoft to examine this problem.

There are postings all over the Internet about people having this problem but no real solutions…only blind luck.

If I come up with anything I’ll post back here, and if any of you would do the same, it will help all of us.

The advantages to video rendering in 64-bit Vista far outweigh any idea of rolling back to 32-bit Windows, where HDV capture on XP or Vista work perfectly. I have had to capture my HDV footage on 32-bit (old machine) and then transfer the files to the 64 bit machine for editing and final rendering. This costs 2x time compared to capture and edit (tape based camera), but is still better than capture and edit on pure 32-bit machines.

Good luck! (this posting is an identical copy to another thread of the same issue).

[David Bilodeau]

This issue is not unique to any particular camera from what I can tell. It is likely a problem with Vista 64 and the IEEE 1394 Firewire native Windows driver. In the HDV mode a camera may be detected and controllable but the video signal through the Firewire interface is either not present or erratic. A more detailed description follows of my saga since getting the new system a couple months ago.

I have a 64-bit Vista Home Premium PC, a Sony HDR-HC9 HD camcorder and I use Sony Vegas Pro 8.1 64-bit edition.

The issue appears to be the video signal on the iLink/IEEE interface from the camera, as detected (not detected, actually, except intermittently) in the driver which ships with Windows Vista 64-bit. For example, Sony does not provide a separate Firewire driver itself, relying instead on the native Windows driver shipped with the O/S.

I have been working with Sony camera support for several months and just today they duplicated my configuration [they were a little slow on the uptake of my issue to try and replicate it] in their U.S. labs and found that they, too, could not capture HDV footage from a like model nor another HDV model of tape-based cameras.

I was playing around a bit with my software, with Windows Movie Maker 64-bit, and finally got some ERRATIC capture behavior, where in one case I was able to capture HDV footage but only if I manually started the camera and then engaged the Vegas HDV Capture utility. This all happened after I was able to successfully install the camera software that came with this model originally plus 2 vital updates which supposedly enabled full 64-bit support for Sony’s camera software, Picture Motion Browser. However, this software does not do anything definitive for the HDV capture though I have gotten conflicting reports as to whether the software updates themselves would impact video capture.

Alas, the HDV capture on 64-bit Vista only worked once and then I could not duplicate the steps to repeat a successful capture.

Sony suspects this to be the driver that is included in Vista 64, as I noted, and I have been putting pressure on them to put pressure on Microsoft to examine this problem. Canon should do the same.

There are postings all over the Internet about people having this problem but no real solutions…only blind luck. I know this: We are not alone in this problem.

If I come up with anything I’ll post back here, and if any of you would do the same, it will help all of us.

The advantages to video rendering in 64-bit Vista far outweigh any idea of rolling back to 32-bit Windows, where HDV capture on XP or Vista work perfectly. I have had to capture my HDV footage on 32-bit (old machine) and then transfer the files to the 64 bit machine for editing and final rendering. This costs 2x time compared to capture and edit (tape based camera), but is still better than capture and edit on pure 32-bit machines.

Good luck!