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any help with my video camera? - kurtcobainfan10-newaccount i have a DCR-HC38 handycam sony video camera. well i want to upload the videos on my computer. someone told me to buy a firwire cord and an IEEE 1394 firewire cardbus card. ok so i got them. so what do i do now? i put the firewire cardbus card in my laptop(windows vista). and the box said it should automatically start downloading, but nothing came up. so i just pluged in the firewire cord into the cardbus card and pluged the iLink side of the firewire cord into my video camera, i turned it on and nothing worked. my software said "Cannot find the Handycam (Tape). Check the i.LINK connection to the Handycam.". so what am i doinf wrong? and what should i be doing? please no stupid anwsers and help me as best as possible and i will give you 10pts.

Best Answer: This is not a camcorder issue. This is a firewire issue - get that working and we'll be good to go. Which manufacturer's firewire card did you get? What model number? Di it come with the CD in the box (with driver)s? Did you install them? Have you been to the manufacturer's site? It will not "automatically start downloading. With a miniDV tape based camcorder, when it is connected to the computer using firewire, launch MovieMaker, identify the firewire port and you will "Capture" the video from the camcorder. Is the camcorder also plugged into the wall for power? It needs to be. Is the camcorder in "Play" or "VCR" mode? It needs to be. ++++ Please be sure the camcorder is in Play or VCR mode. If it is and MovieMaker still does not want to see the camcorder, You can also try downloading and installing WinDV http://www.videohelp.com/tools/WinDV If that does not work: According to Syba (the manufacturer), the drivers should already be taken care of in your operating system. http://it.us.syba.com/support_download/download/73-0505-1.html Contact them via email http://it.us.syba.com/contact/index.html and have them walk you through getting that card working. It is likely whomever did the Windows installation on your computer was incomplete and did not include the firewire drivers through Microsoft. - Nu'uanu

As Nu'uanu said, the camcorder needs to be switched to play and then Windows Movie Maker should be able to see it when you go to Capture Video. If it doesn't, try rebooting the laptop with the camcorder connected and switched on. But what software's giving the error message "Cannot find the Handycam (Tape)"? It doesn't sound like WMM! And btw, PCMCIA isn't the manufacturer, it's another name for cardbus - you may need to check that your card is compatible with the Vista firewire driver. - iridflare

Go to Sony's website and search around for downloadable drivers, then search for the name of your camera and download the necessary driver. Good Luck. - Rattlingmurdock

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