Computer Not detecting My XHA1

[Don Palomaki]

If the camcorder is showing HDV/DV IN, the necessary handshaking for video capture has not been establishd between the camcorder and the PC.

In some cases this can relate to the connection and power up sequence.

To have successful capture the camcorder and capture progarm must be in full agreement as to the format of the video on the IEEE1394 port. If the capture program thinks it is outputting DV and the cammcorder thinks HDV there may be no joy. And in general you cannot change camcorder output settings while connected to the computer. There are two camcorder settings involved, and capture program settings will depend on the software used.

Lastly, IEEE1394 ports based on some VIA chips are known to be problematic for DV/HDV capture. If all else fails you may want to try a card based on a TI chip. (This is not an issue unique to C anon camcorders, adn it will not show up as an error (e.g., the yellow circle) to Windows..)

You can verify the camcorder firewire port by taking it to a friend who has a known working capture capability, or possibly by trying a transfer to another firewire-capable camcorder.

[Josh Young]

ok guys... only thing i haven't tried is changing my firewire card out... ive tried vegas, ive even tried an hdv specific recorder... switched the signal setting to hdv (while the camera was unhooked) and all that.... is there anything else besides the card you can think of... and if not could anyone point me to a different card to try?

[Don Palomaki]

FWIW, GOOGLE on "VIA VT6306 capture" and yo will get a numeber of hits where people are reporting capture problems with that specific chip set.

I do not recall reading of problems with cards based on Texas Instrument (TI) firewire chip sets. I have generally used motherboard-based IEEE 1394 (firewire) ports, or ports on capture breakout boxes, so I do not have a specific suggestion, But search on cards, read the card specs, and then GOOGLE the card and its chipset for reportd problems before you buy it.

[Chaz Edwards]

Kind of late to this thread but I'm having similar issues:

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

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Chaz,

Look in the camcorder menu for a "VCR" setting. Will need to be manually set to "HDV", if on "Auto" or "DV" then PC will see it as a DV device. Should have 1394 from camera to PC disconnected when changing this. Power off camera, connect 1394, power on camera, computer should acknowledge that you have connected a device, rather than "DV Device" the HDV should be seen as "AVC Subunit" I think.

i.Link convert should of course be OFF in camera if you want to output HDV.

Hope this helps

Jeff