Sony FX1 - crazy driver issues/ premier issues

[maxslomoff]

hello,
i'm looking for help with a horrible and complicated problem that seems to manifest in many ways...

basically, i can't get the sony fx1 camera to work properly with the computer, and if it shows up on the computer it doesn't seem to work with premier pro 1.5.1

either
1;the camera doesn't show up on the computer when connected - device manager reports nothing
1.a; the camera shows up as a 61883 device with an exclamation point.
2; device manager reports a sony dv camera under imaging devices - but under the drivers tab it says no drivers are installed for this device and after a few moments the noise gongs and the camera is removed from device manager
3;the camera shows up as an av/c tape device under sound video and game controlers
and if so...
4;when i start premier i get a "driver error" pop up window
5;when i try to capture the program reports capture device off line
6;when i try to capture the program freezes

the next crazy thing is that when i tried this on my regular system it didn't work, so i did a clean install of xp sp2 on a different drive and didn't install anything except premier. on this system the camera connected fine at first and for two days i was able to digitize. after that premier reported the driver error and this whole string of problems ensued as i've tried to fix it.

the bonus question is... WHY ON EARTH WOULD THE CAMERA BE INSTALLED AND WORKING FINE ONLY TO NOT WORK A FEW DAYS LATER WITH NO SYSTEM CHANGES?

thanks for any wisdom and advice you can share...
by the way, i found these two pages
http://forums.windrivers.com/archive/index.php/t-63455
http://forums.windrivers.com/showthread.php?p=504817
and tried two patches that are available on the microsoft site for 1394 enumerating problems. they did not do the trick. neither does resetting the camera. and, i have never gotten the "data is invalid" error. my firewire card seems to be fine.

max
(running xp sp2, p4 2.8, 1 gig ram, 4 hard drives, asus mobo, dlink firewire card)

[NooNoo]

It may be the capture driver problem, it may be caused by a fault on the camera or the cable...

Rather than starting premier... start Windows movie maker (yah I know but we are testing right?)... Does movie maker see the camera? What capture devices are listed? Do you have an analogue tv in or tv tuner in that box?

You said XP sp2.. did you do windows updates as well? And do the movie maker update?

[maxslomoff]

windows movie maker does not support this camera. it uses a new format called HDV and is only supported by certain editing software right now. perhaps it is a fault in the camera or cable and that's why it only works some of the time... but then, if it works at all that should be evidence that the camera and cable are ok.

you know what the funny thing is NooNoo? right as i opened this page to see if anyone had replied, i powered on the camera and guess what - it's recongnized by the computer (a little icon of a camera apeared in the tray when i connected it, along with the ding dong sound, and in my computer it appears under "scaners and Cameras" as Sony DV Camcorder #3, and in device manager its listed under "imaging devices" as Sony DV Camcorder #3) additionaly the connection wizard tells me i've connected the camera and asks me what i'd like to do. I select "edit and record with premier" and i've been digitizing some tapes since.

one reason for this may be that the camera is in DV mode right now, not HDV mode and i am digitizing some DV footage. Now i will try to insert a HDV tape and see what happens.

[NooNoo]

You have reported exactly what is required for dv mode... hdv mode I have never experienced, but I would think that there may be a patch or update at sony and/or premiere websites.

[maxslomoff]

there is an update for premier and i have that installed (premier pro 1.5.1)

upon opening a HDV project and inserting an HDV tape and resetting the camera, the computer seems to recognize the camera properly, but there is no device control in premier.

this is on my old system disk with all my apps installed on it (not the clean install disk). On the old system disk this issue seems to be a software issue now. The camera is recognised by the computer in both dv and hdv mode. Premier has device control in dv mode, but no device control in HDV mode. when i play the camera manually the video shows up in the capture window, but no timecode or device control buttons appear. And, interestingly, when i turn of the camera premier reports "device offline" instead of "no device control" in the capture window. i have aspect HD 3.3 installed. When i uninstall aspect HD, the capture window only reports "device offline" whether the camera is on or off and no video shows up in the capture window if the camera is playing. I tried uninstalling the camera and firewire drivers and restarting - to no avail.

On the clean install system disk, (on which i tried fooling arround with the reg edit) i tried installing windows over the top of the system as was finally the solution in the previous post - to no avail.

As i am out of guesses on how to get device control on my current system I wonder if you have any suggestions?

While i wait, i am going to do a new clean install of xp on the other drive, install sp2 and premier like i did before and see if that works again. If so, i'm going to try to make a ghost image of that drive to go back to. (i've tried system restore on this drive but it did not get the camera working again)

thanks,
max

[NooNoo]

Maybe it just needed to install correctly as a dv device before it could be an hdv device... as to working on one disk and not on the other - only a long and boring comparison of settings/driver versions/installed software will reveal the problem.

[maxslomoff]

actually, it works on neither disk. i've done two clean installs since last night with different configurations and each time i could not get the camera to work with premier.

why would it work for two days and then not work one day if i've installed nothing on my computer or done anything else to it?

i'm going to try installing a new firewire card even though xp reports this texas instruments card is working fine.

[NooNoo]

Uhh now I am confused... you said you had it working using a dv tape...?

The dv chip in the camera can blow btw just from switching it on as detailed here (http://forums.windrivers.com/showpost.php?p=519665&postcount=8)

[maxslomoff]

------------------------THE SOLUTION-------------------

this turned out to be a problem with the firewire card. I was using a D-LINK DFW-500 firewire card that i bought in 2001. in device manager this card is reported as a texas instruments card and always reported that it was working properly. and sometimes the camera would actually connect to the computer and work with premier pro. in 2002 i edited a feature with this card on avid xpress.

have replaced it with a new belkin card that happens to have a power input on it. I tried connecting the camera when the card was not connected to the power and it did work.

(i had previously tried installing aspect hd trial to see if that would make my camera work and after installing this new fire wire card i had to re-adjust the project settings to normal HDV before the camera was on line)

out with the old hardware and in with the new.

[NooNoo]

Glad you figured it out.