Can't upload video from Camcorder.

[PaulC]

I recently upgraded from vista to windows 7 which was mostly trouble free. I reloaded all my programs, including pe9 and vegas movie studio 9, with no problems. I have a Sony handycam hdr-hc3 which I use to view my old tapes and to upload them to my computer for archiving.After the upgrade I connected the camcorder to the computer and windows installed the drivers and declared it ready for use. When I tried to use Vegas to upload a tape it said that the camcorder was in use by another program and couldn't open it. Pe9 just stuck on the capture screen and Windows movie maker also said the device was in use by another program. I eventually got pe9 to start the capture process. It ran for half an hour and said that video was being imported but no actual video was imported and pe9 crashed. When I restarted my computer windows failed to start and I had to go through the start up repair process. Is there any way I can find out which program has commandeered the camcorder. I checked in task manager and can't find any program or process that might be using it.

[Steve Grisetti]

When you say "upgraded", do you mean you have a new computer or that you just installed Windows 7 onto Vista? Did you go from 32-bit to a 64-bit operating system and, if so, did you install the new operating system from scratch?

If the latter, make sure you all of the Windows Updates. Manually go to Windows Update and select the option to Show Hidden Updates. Make sure you've even got the stuff that doesn't update automatically.

Also make sure you've got the latest version of Quicktime. And, for good measure, do a Disk Cleanup and Defragmentation. (After a new OS is installed, your computer is a mess of junk and temp files!)

Then make sure that you've swapped in the Firewire legacy driver. Here's how, from my books:

• Click the Windows Start orb and type "device manager" into the Search box and select the Device Manager from the list the appears.
• Swivel open the "IEEE 1394 Bus host controllers" item
• Right-click on your listed 1394 controller; select "Update Driver Software"
• Click the "Browse my computer for driver software" button, followed by the "Let me pick from a list" button
• Select the option that has "(Legacy)" at the end of the name; click Next and let the driver be installed
• Close out of the dialogs and retry capture

[PaulC]

Steve, your answer was spot on. I swapped in the Firewire legacy driver and uploaded a tape with Sony Vegas Movie Studio. Thanks for the help.

[Steve Grisetti]

Great news, Paul!