I usually capture HDV no problem from my HVR-A1P in VMS Platinum 10. However the other day I wanted to capture a standard def DV tape. Set the camera 'VCR HDV/DV' setting to DV and made sure the 'iLINK CONV ' to OFF. I then connected the iLINK cable from the computer and powered up the camera selecting 'Play/Edit'. To my surprise the camera was not able to be detected by VMS10 capture.
I left the camera connected and exited VMS10 and selected my TMPGEnc Works 4 software and that recognised the camera and so did MS Movie maker. This has got me stumped! I have checked the project properties and the options menu and can't see anything amiss. Has anyone got ideas??

You have VMS defaulted to do an HDV capture.
You need to change it back to DV which is found (in Pro anyway) in Options - Prefs - Video.

Sorry no such selection on the preferences / video menu in VMS Platinum 10. That would have been helpful to have had that choice.

I browsed the Sony VMS site and found the following info.
Hope it helps.

On Movie Studio 9 Platinum Pro Pack, there are two capture options -- DV and HDV. For each you can set your capture preferences to "Enable DV Scene Selection" or "Enable HDV Scene Selection," respectively.

Capture Preferences menu:
In DV capture it's Project - Capture Video - DV
In HDV capture it's Project - Capture Video - HDV

Thanks Mike for your effort in researching version 9. However in VMS 10 Platinum if you go to Project/Capture/Prefs/ you only get the option to tick a box that says 'Enable HDV scene detection' even when you untick this box it still dosn't help and no device is detected. There is not clear cut choice for DV or HDV. Of course the other afore mentioned software 'Works 4' and 'Movie Maker' works fine.

Very strange. I just fired up VMS 10 and went to file/capture and there was the choice to tick SD or HDV...

Thanks Robin for joining in the discussion. Good to see you have a copy of SONY Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum ver10. I have included three pictures one of the screen after File/Capture/Pref's are selected then one of each extent of the 'pref' drop down. Thats all I get. Would love to see the screen you manage to get. Maybe I have a file missing with my program?? I normally work only in HDV but this was one occasion where I wanted to just capture some DV footage from my SONY HVR-A1P but to no avail. The camera settings are good as I think I have proved in the previous posts. I would value your or anyones response. Cheers, have a great Christmas. Its 25deg C and 80%+ humidity here in NZ.

Warren,
When I open up the DV capture dialogue, my capture box looks like this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v137/robind-r/DVcapturescreen.jpg

As you can see at the top, it is using a Sony Video Capture plugin, version 6.0
I know it says "device communication error" but that's because my camera wasn't available tonight, but it would have worked fine otherwise.
You don't seem to be seeing the same capture box...

Don't know about version 10 or VMS but didn't Vegas used to want an "external" capture program for DV? And there was some Sony capture program available as I recall. And the program had to be selected somewhere in Options.

Haven't been able to really check as the machine that has Version 9 & 10 has been acting up and is off for service so apologies if I'm out of date.

Well Robin I guess in a roundabout way you are telling me that VMS10 as sold requires an additional peice of software in the form of a plugin to capture DV. This is not part of the SONY Vegas Movie Studio Platinum ver 10 download. Now it is crystal clear how come you were able to capture DV and I am not. Thanks for letting me know. Cheers to all that responded & have a great white Christmas.

Well Robin I guess in a roundabout way you are telling me that VMS10 as sold requires an additional peice of software in the form of a plugin to capture DV. This is not part of the SONY Vegas Movie Studio Platinum ver 10 download...
This may be incorrect.

Your screenshots show the HDV "internal" capture app, and the capture prefs.

Strangely, capture prefs is not where you select the HDV or DV capture utilities.

In Pro it's in:
Tools | Options | Video | Use external video capture application | C:\Program Files\Sony\Vegas Movie Studio 10.0\VidCap60.EXE

You can also open vidcap60.exe by double-clicking on it in the above program files folder. Note that DV uses the "external" application, HDV is done with the "internal" application. Not very intuitive.

I suspect it's in the same place in VMS - let us know!

OK - I was able to take a look at a Vegas 10 installation, and went to Options-> Preferences -> Video and it looks exactly like all the other versions of Vegas that I have.

They still do DV the exact same way as in Vegas 8/9, ie they need an "external video capture application" and they have automatically filled in a link to VidCap60.exe which was automatically installed in the Vegas 10 program directory.

Have you checked to see whether VMS also did this? From what Robin said it looks like they are doing things exactly the same way as always even in VMS. If so all you would have to do is check the box that tells them to use the application they may have already installed for you.

I was just coming back to the forum to tell you all I figured it out, but you beat me to it. You recall I said I always work in HDV, well in Options/Preferences/Video tab the tick box for 'Use external video capture application' was unticked. That was a default I think. By ticking it when I hit the capture button a totally new screen appeared 'Sony Video Capture 6'. You are right its all there and has been all the time. I know I am covered in egg but it was worth it. Thanks all so much, so simple but its a show stopper if you don't know. Just shows me we never stop learning.

Glad you got it! Yes - it's a strange place to hide the parameter, but I believe it can also point to a separate app for HDV if you wish - something like Cineform perhaps. People do use other capture apps, so I think it's nice of them to recognize that fact, I just have no idea why they don't handle DV themselves. Must be historic reasons or something.