Help ---- Firewire problems detecting Canon MV890 Camcorder

Hi.
I hope to find a solution to this problem. I own a Vista Home Premium
(32 bit) with SP1. Yesterday I bought a firewire (IEEE1394) PCI card
and installed it. Windows didn't have any problems detecting the card
and it says there are non conflicts and it's working fine.

Next step I connected the camcorder to the firewire card (4 pin to 6
pin) turend on the camera (VCR/play) but Windows remained silent - no
detection of my camcorder.

OK, so this Camcorder is not compatible with vista I tought...gone to
the Canon website and there it is -> the camcorder *IS* compatible
with vista and doesn't need any driver.

What I fail to understand is why Windows doesn't detect the Camcorder,
if it was the model I would understand that maybe a driver is missing
but in this case I turn on the camcorder and it does nothing, simply
nothing. I have also installed Windows XP SP3 on my laptop and of
curse no problem there - the camcorder was detected immediately.

Does anyone know how to resolve this problem? I use the Camcorder for
work purposes and right now I'm stuck thinking of moving back to XP -
at least the camcorder seems to be detected with this OS.

Thank you,
Elio

You "import" the video through the software program you wish to use to work
with the video.

Try Windows Movie maker.

Go to file | import from digital video camera

Ehm...no, maybe I wasn't clear enough. Vista doesn't recognize my
camcorder so I cant't import anything - the Firewire card has been
recongnized with no problem and there are no hardware conflicts. Once
I connect my camcorder nothing happens, Vista doesn't seem to detect
that the camcorder has been turned on - nothing. I thought the problem
was with the firewire cable (it was a longshot but worth to try) - I
asked a friend of mine for his cable but the resolt was the same - no
detection.

Could it be a Firewall problem? since Vista doesn't even detect a
switch-on of the camcorder I think maybe the problem is somewhat
connected to a security problem - don't you think?

I doubt that a firewall would prevent a video camera from being detected by
a software program on the same computer.

PROBLEM RESOLVED
****************************
Look at this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927827/en-us
It seems Microsoft did *SOMETHING* to the Firewire connection on
Vista. If you follow TO THE LETTER the procedure (meaning going to the
Windows registry and inserting this new value as described on the
article on Microsoft's web site) the camcorder is fully recognized by
Vista!!

The good news is - "it is possible" so don't despair! Read on for how I managed to solve this problem!

Background: I recently bought a new laptop with Vista installed and tried to connect my Canon MV3i camcorder using a new IEEE firewire cable. Unfortunately my new laptop did not recognise my camcorder!

One immediately questions whether the cable works properly or whether the firewire card is okay, etc, etc. However the simple issue was that MS Vista does not seem to be as "plug and play" as its predecessor XP! I called MS and the person on the line was pleasant, but really had no idea how to solve the problem and wasted an hour of my time; they basically told me my camcorder was too old and that a new camcorder would work with Vista! Thank you microsoft!

Fortunately I still own a computer using XP, so was able to see that the camcorder and firewire cable were okay. For those who don't have XP on another machine - this must be really frustrating as you can't make the check I made.

The first thing I did was to download Canon's latest digital camcorder package: ZoomBrowser EX (I don't think this resolved the problem, but I downloaded the latest version anyway, in case my previous version only worked with XP).

The second (very simple) step, which solved the problem was to:
- switch off camcorder
- switch off laptop / pc
- start the camera in VCR mode and press play on your camcorder
- switch on laptop / pc

And voila - Vista recognised my camcorder and I was able to use Vista's Movie Maker to download my films!!

N.B. it is important that your camcorder is actually playing a film and not just switched on every time you want to download films. If you don't, it will again fail to recognise your camcorder.


It took me a couple of hours to work this out and I hope this helps other users who are frustrated with Vista's shortcomings! Good luck!

Philip

Try this link .... it worked immediately for me.

*'Windows Vista does not enumerate an IEEE 1394a device that you
connect to the computer' (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927827/en-us)*

Do you recall if this registry hack is appropriate even when the
firewire card shows up in Device Mangager with the latest driver.? Also
what is the ControllerInstance number? There is a 0000 and a 0001, does
this relate to which PCI slot that the firewire card is connected to
(top slot 0000 and bottom 0001?). I am not a Vista or XP expert, I just
want to get my camcorder download working.
I am having the same problem with my Sony Camcorder. I turn it on and
hit the play button, go into movie maker and it can't find my camcorder.

thanks for any help you can give me.