I have an older PC with Sony Vegas Pro 6 installed that I used to capture / edit DVCAM video & MiniDV.
I've been able to capture / edit from my Canon XHA1 as long as I downconvert in the camera to output HDV to DV. The PC is pretty robust with an ASUS LGA775 PL5VM-1394 mobo, 2GB of RAM, Windows XP and a Seagate RAID Array. But the capture software won't recognize the XHA1 unless I downcovert.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Chaz

I am not a Vegas user, does the Version 6 software support HDV capture?

In both the capture program and the XH A1 need to be configured for HDV capture and HDV output. Further the camera configuration needs to be done while not connected to the PC. With some systems the "Auto" settng may not be effctive. Also, some system are sensitive to the sequence of connection and power-up to ensure proper handshaking.

According to the release notes, capture from HDV cameras was introduced in version 6.

In addition to Don's excellent advice, check also that you are choosing the correct type of capture, the choices being DV or HDV/SDI. This might sound obvious but if at some time in the past you ticked the 'always use the selected format' checkbox you might find it is defaulting to DV. You can change this in preferences.