Stuck at the gate - can't get Adobe Premiere to detect DV

[Felecha]

Trying to get started with video capture. Sony PC110, Maxtor 1394 PCI Adapter Card, Adobe Premiere 6.0, Windows 98se, HP 9680c. We're trying to follow directions, and it looks like we're stalled at the starting gate.

We have the camera plugged in -- with the firewire cord in the camera and the card, camera plugged into the wall, set to VCR, start Premiere, it comes up with a settings window, and right away we see it saying -- cannot connect to capture card. Device control is not available. The install of the 1394 card seems to be OK. Plug and Play found it right away and loaded the driver for it, slick as a whistle. It shows in Device Manager as 1394 Bus Controller, and Properties says it's working properly.

Any ideas what we're missing? I found in one Adobe document something about Device Manager and "Imaging Device" and MSDV drivers for the camera itself??? I wasn't clear on that and what they were looking for. One thing I saw and followed -- plug it in and set it to camera rather than VCR, and Plug and Play will recognize the camera and load it as an imaging device. That did nothing in our case, so I'm fearing that's going to be the problem. Device Manager shows nothing for that -- not even a device category listing. When I looked into Add New Hardware I saw there was a category, but the only thing listed was for Kodak. So I reached a dead end there. Do I need something for the camera as well as the card?

Thanks for any pointers

 

[Felecha]

Well, after many headscratches and much searching of internet resources and many reboots and trying to add new hardware, etc, now I find the Device Manager's "Imaging Devices" category showing at last, but with "!Unknown device" and the yellow warning. When it appeared I don't know. I've not checked Device Manager every time I did anything new. I've hopefully tried to find what it thinks the device might be so I can give it a driver from somewhere, anywhere, anything to satisfy its need, but I'm stumped. A hopeful sign, but still stuck in the mud.

 

[smp]

I haven't used premiere in a while .. (been single) .. but uh, I think you go into movie preferences .. and then look around in there, because you can connect to different capture devices from within premiere, and it might not be set to look for DV .. you have to tell premiere to use DV and not composite or something else. If all else fails, buy a mac.

 

[Felecha]

A far as I know, it's set for DV. My daughter (this whole thing is for her -- she had a summer school course in video filmmaking and loved it and we got the camera for Christmas -- it's been a long and frustrating story including a trip to the Sony Warranty Hospital for the camera. Don't ask...) knows a fair amount about the Premiere stuff -- we're just stuck with a dialog box called DV Device Control 2.o that says

"The DV device is unavailable for device control"

And another called DV Device Control Options -- there's a box that says

"Status: Offline"

And in Project Settings/Capture we see a box that says

"Unable to connect to capture driver"

Now I'm back to fearing there's actually something wrong with the capture card or its driver. It has seemed so definitely that the card was not the problem. All the documentation references have been clear as can be -- don't worry, Windows 98se is all set with exactly the drivers to use for any 1394 OHCI Compliant device. Don't even think about looking for something better or different. This is the one that Adobe specifically expects to work with and specifically in its own documentation says you should use it and don't try anything else and assures me that Plug and Play will find it and load it, no problem. And it seemed to. But now this --

My daughter pointed out that the camera came from Sony with a CD that has another editing program on it -- MGI Videowave. Why not install that one and see if it can see the card and camera? So we did, and in trying to get it to work, I found in its Help a specific reference to one of its option panels where you can check checkboxes for things. The checkbox for "Video Capture" will be grayed out if there's no capture card installed. Well, the box was grayed out. One can only conclude that there's a good chance then that the card is somehow really not working right. But it's seemed till now that it was so definitely OK:

1. Its installation went so exactly by-the-book
2. Device Manager says it's working properly
3. The salesman at BestBuy assured me that the card is a good one and is a very commonly used one and was clear when I said I wanted a capture card for, you know, highspeed stuff for editing, not just a family fun thing and he said, yes sir, I know exactly what you're asking, I do editing myself and I assure you you're not buying the wrong product or a bad product.

So now what do I think? What can I do further than this???

 

[Felecha]

A friend suggested reinstalling 98se, and that did it. Apparently the Imaging Devices thing got dinged and was restored with a reinstall. It showed up and went to work and Adobe works now. She's editing right now!!

Thanks

F

 

[LethalWolfe]

<< 3. The salesman at BestBuy assured me that the card is a good one and is a very commonly used one and was clear when I said I wanted a capture card for, you know, highspeed stuff for editing, not just a family fun thing and he said, yes sir, I know exactly what you're asking, I do editing myself and I assure you you're not buying the wrong product or a bad product.

So now what do I think? What can I do further than this??? >>



First off, you expect a sales person at BB to have a clue and/or tell you something that might endanger a sale? 😉 Second, have you tried exchanging the card for a new one? Maybe you just got a bum card.


Lethal