[Shane Taylor]

Hey Guys – I HAVE A SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM. It doesn’t involve installing any new drivers, or even futzing with the settings. It might sound weird, but it’s easier than you think and even eluded ME after trying all the different steps (including those listed here) across the internet.

My story: After activating “Disk Cleanup,” my HDV capture suddenly stopped-working. I went through 7 different system-restores to try and get this functionality back, but NOTHING. After 2-hours on the phone with Norton Antivirus (I had activated “Disk Cleanup” because my computer was acting-up in the first place), still no gas.

The Solution: ESPECIALLY with Canon HV-series (mine is 20); Leave all the camera settings intact; i.e., Auto-mode instead of HDV or DV, and DEFINITELY do not engage DV-lock; this won’t help. Second, follow THESE instructions on how to rollback your IEEE 1394 driver to “Legacy” (yes, does work). If you have an OEM version of Windows like I do, you may need to install Moviemaker and Photo-gallery from Windows Live Essentials online (for those of you who custom-built your systems) – they contain the necessary drivers for windows itself to recognize A/V devices (before that, my computer wouldn’t even beep when I plugged-in the camera). Restart.

Now, this may sound odd, but go ahead and open vegas with your camera ON. Make sure your project settings match the resolution of the source-footage, etc. (HDV 1080-60i [1440×1080, 29.970 fps] in my case) Click on the capture button and select HDV/SDI, and proceed as normal.

Now here’s the weird part – don’t freak when it says your device is not available. I stared at this notification until I started drooling, until I decided to do something novel which I NEVER thought would make a difference, until it did: TURN THE CAMERA OFF, THEN BACK ON AGAIN, WHILE IN THE CAPTURE WINDOW. Suddenly, if you drop-down to the IEEE 1394-device section, you will see the ADDITIONAL arrow that leads you to your particular camera! Instantaneously, the connection will be established and you can start capturing immediately. SO WEIRD! I was freaking-out, because this is my job and I have no other way to capture HDV footage.. so thought I’d share the knowledge with the rest of you. Hope this helps.