camcorder not compatible with Windows 7

[trouttrooper]

Gosh Mr. Game Warden what did you do today??

Well Johnny, I made 2 trips to town getting cables and adaptors and spent the rest of the day trying to get my damn camcorder to connect to my new computer only to find out.... IT WONT!!! :mad2::mad2::mad2::mad2: Pretty much told our IT guy off today and wanted my old computer back.

Long story short guys, since I'm still fuming over getting absolutley nothing accomplished today. I have some training video I recorded this week at work and need to transfer it to my computer. What is the cheapest way to download MiniDV videos to a laptop running on Windows 7? My 4 year old camcorder is apparently outdated and not compatible with Windows 7. I have issues with supposedly needing to buy another camcorder simply because my "old" one isn't compatible. There's nothing freaking wrong with the camera!

Any advice? I have a real desire to go out and shoot the crap out of something with my AR-15 right now just for the hell of it.

 

[Franko914]

Gosh Mr. Game Warden what did you do today??

<snip>

Any advice? I have a real desire to go out and shoot the crap out of something with my AR-15 right now just for the hell of it.

Oooooo! Make sure you take videos of that....

How are you connecting from camcorder to laptop? (Proprietary cable that comes with camcorder to USB?)
What interface on the camcorder? (Mini-USB (A/B), micro-USB? Composite audio? FireWire?)
What make/model camcorder?
What software are you using on the laptop to download/convert?
What messages are you getting?

Once we figure it out, we'd like to see what you shot up...

 

[trouttrooper]

Samsung SC d372. It connects via firewire. Only software would be microsoft stuff that came with the computer, but the problem is the computer doesn't even see the camera. Samsung's tech support said the camcorder is too old (4 years) and not compatible with 64 bit windows 7 and they have no plans to provide any upgrades for it. There are no messages that pop up. I was wondering if there was another way to download without using the camcorder, if there was something I could put the tape in to play it to transfer to the computer.

 

[Edzzed]

same thing happened to us with our security cameras. Swann works with vista but we upgraded to 64 bit windows 7 and it is not compatible with Swann. I also tried to make our computer think it could make it work by using the troubleshooter but that didn't work. Swann also has no plans to upgrade the software. I ended up buying different hardware and software from a different company. I could have gone with vista again but we changed due to hard drive failure and didn't know about compatibility issues. You'd think companies would do more to keep customers loyal. Buy yourself a cheapo computer running whatever OS you had and down load to it, then send the files to your new computer.

 

[Franko914]

Check Device Manager if the IEEE 1394 Firewire host/controller are properly working:

-- Click [Start]
-- Select "Control Panel"
-- Click on "System & Security"
-- Click on "Device Manager"

-- Make sure IEEE 1394 Bus Host/Controllers have no red or yellow flags
---- You can try disabling the device, reboot, then enabling the device
---- You can try removing the driver manually, then reinstall manually or by autoconfiguration
---- Bottom line is, until these are installed properly, you cannot proceed

Check Device Manager if the camcorder is recognized by the laptop:

-- Make sure your camcorder is listed under "Imaging Devices"
---- Shutdown the laptop, turn off the camcorder, unplug the camcorder, turn on the laptop and wait until all hard drive activity stops, plug in the camcorder, turn on the camcorder, wait a few minutes (be patient), check Device Manager (try this at least twice... seriously and be patient)
---- If that does not work, shutdown the laptop, shutdown camcorder, unplug/plug-in the camcorder, turn on the camcorder, turn on the laptop and wait until all hard drive activity stops, check Device Manager (try this at least twice... seriously and be more patient)
---- Until the laptop recognizes the hardware plugged into it, you cannot proceed

Once the laptop recognizes the camcorder, the easy part is done. Next is to get video capture software that will work.

I am assuming you are running 64-bit Windows 7. Try the following freeware:

http://www.nchsoftware.com/capture/index.html

http://paul.glagla.free.fr/captureflux_en.htm (supposed to work with Firewire mini DV camcorders)

Let us know if it works. Good luck!

 

[trouttrooper]

Bottom line is the camera will not work with the computer. Is there any other way, short of buying another camcorder, to copy miniDV tapes to the hard drive? There's no way they will let me get a second "older" computer to transfer files.

About half of us ran into this as well with one brand of pocket audio recorders. They were the perfect size and produced the clearest audio files compared to anything else, except we discovered they aren't compatible with Windows 7. Essentially several hundred dollars down the drain because these perfectly good recorders can't download to our new computers.

 

[JiFaire]

This is gonna sound dumb, but plug in some headphones and try it again. Windows 7 is port-aware and shuts down unused ports. FireWire addresses the same device range, so if you can get that range enabled, your laptop might see your camera.

Maybe.

Hey, it's cheap to try!

 

[JiFaire]

If that doesn't work, post back here. I have some other ideas you might try.
jim

 

[Franko914]

Others have been successful with getting their mini DV camcorders to work with Windows 7 (32 & 64-bit). See .pdfs below of examples of what Device Manager is supposed to look like. What does your Device Manger display?

 

[JiFaire]

Here's some more info, Mike...

http://social.technet.microsoft.com...e/thread/65cb7a25-2a84-4875-aa27-b084537e8da1

 

[trouttrooper]

thanks guys. It's going to be a few days before I get back to this problem, I'll let you know then if anything worked. Taking a few days off here to put the final touches on the house before putting it on the market.

 

[Franko914]

Just make sure you can get to the point where the laptop recognizes the camcorder (in Device Management).

Because Windows 7 and the embedded application that performed the video capture do not work anymore, you will have to use an "after market" solution, for which there a few freeware options that do work (see previous post). Nevertheless, the laptop has to see the camcorder first.

 

[trouttrooper]

Basically spent another day at this. No dice. Didn't matter what I did, windows 7 will not recognize the camcorder. I'm going to grab one of the XP platform computers (hopefully my old one) to download this last bit of footage and then the camcorder is going to the state auction.

What a pain in the azz.