I have a Sony handycam camcorder. It trying to put my videos onto my PC. When I bought it, it came with a USB cable. Ive tried connecting this to the camcorder/PC but it doesn’t detect a connection. I think I will need a FIREWIRE cable, ad do it this way?????? My prblem is, my pc doesnt have a WIREWIRE socket/connection????????Is there a way round this?????please help and advise Many Thanks

Hi There

I had same problem with my Sony Digital8 (also called HI8 ) handycam. My vista system was not able to detect my Handycam with a very very cheap FIREWIRE PCI Card I bought in local market for only $4, yes four dollars. It came with same cable 6pin to 4pin Firewire (Sony calls it i.Link). I was trying to connect with same cable 4pin at camera end and 6pin on PCI Card, with no luck. I tried everything an expert would do, but got only frustration. Even tried a lot on internet for the solution but it seems no one knew.

Then I started from scratch, TO DECIDED TO READ MANUAL. While reading the PDF manual found on Sony Support site, trust me, I found those golden words "USE ONLY 4PIN TO 4PIN i.Link Cable for Firewire connection."

I ran back to market and bought 4PIN TO 4PIN Firewire Cable for $1.5

At first trial, trust me, it detected "SONY DV Camcorder" and installed drivers automatically. I confirmed by going into Device Manager and found same entry in Imaging Device section. Then what in every possible software existed on my system, DV Capture was available, which was found always disabled.

Now the funny part it, technically there is no difference in 6pin to 4pin Firewire cable as two pins are used for Voltage which is discarded at 4 pin end. But it seems SONY Handycam does not wants itself to connect it to 6pin socket at PCI card end.

So these are the final things to remember.
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1) Use only 4pin to 4pin Firewire cable (any cheaper make. $1.5 will do)

2) Use any cheaper FIREWIRE PCI card with at least one 4pin firewire socket. When installed XP or Vista will install driver automatically just confirm that "IEEE 1394 bus host controller" entry is shown in Device manager or not.

3) No matter you use cheaper or costlier PCI card or cable the quality will always be same coz D8 Handycams directly transfer encoded Video Data in Digital format thru Firewire cable. Firewire cable does not transfer RF video input. I get default video with 720x576 with 25 Frames/s in PAL mode.

4) No additional codecs are required to install in pc like others suggested. Required codecs are always there in XP and VISTA with windows movie maker.

5) No additional software is required, as you can directly capture with Windows Movie Maker in high quality. My choice is Adobe Premier CS3. If you want to make directly MPG file you may use ULEAD VIDEOSTUDIO 8 or later.

6) Dont blame SONY as they already told you which exact cable to use.

7) In handycam mode, you can control PLAY/STOP/PAUSE of Handycam from PC itself from all the video software you use, which is high convinience for capturing.

8) The sequence to capture is first Switch on the CAMERA, put it on PLAY/EDIT mode (also called VCR mode). Then connect firewire cable on both sides. Now you see the words DV-IN on LCD of camera. Now start any Video Capture Software of your choice. You will find CAPTURE command in FILE menu in almost all softwares.

Trust me I am going to add this information in almost all forums where similar problems were asked but nowhere the solution found. May be I can help them. Trust me I signed up this forum only to add this information.

Thanks for listening

Mahendra
Mumbai, India

In case your system (laptop/PC) is not detecting the Firewire device. be patient and do not put all force on the cable. The force u apply at the cable might damage the find firewire pins in the port.