PE 3, ADS Pyro A/V API 557 & Vista problems

[Cozzie]

Hi all,

Back in early 2007, I bought a Sony handicam (mini-dvd), shot hours of beautiful family memories, then had all manner of trouble trying to transfer these onto my PC and burn to DVD. After literally months of painful research and trying half a dozen different video editing packages, I finally found my way to this forum and got immediate results. Guys like Chuck Engles, Steve Grisetti, David Guinness and others suggested I buy an ADS Pyro AV box and premier elements, then patiently guided me thru its configuration & use. Thankyou again for this great advice. My video capture, editing, burning and watching has been blissful ever since.... Until about 3 months ago when I replaced my XP PC with a laptop running Vista. Since then I've tried all manner of things to get the laptop (and PE3) to recognise the Pyro box, and by extension, the camcorder.

I've tried ADS support over the last week and have had no response, so thought I'd ask the good folk who peruse this forum again. I'm starting to build up piles of used mini-disks & the kids are starting to harp (ask?) when we're going to watch our camping video.... Anyway, does anyone have any ideas? I'll try virtually anything to get this back on the rails.

Here's some additional information that may refine the problem:

My new laptop (high end HP Pavillion) has a 'small' firewire port (where the desktop had a 'big' firewire port) so I bought a 'big to small' firewire cable to connect the Pyro box (big firewire port) to the laptop. Premier elements still sees the 'capture device offline'. I've tried all combinations of rebooting laptop, pyro box, camcorder.

I also noticed that the dip-switch guide for the AV Link has no setting for Vista.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Cozzie

[Steve Grisetti]

Hi, Cozzie. Sorry to hear that Pyro is giving you problems.

Meantime, before the Pyro experts chime in, it might be worth checking the obvious.

Does the Firewire connector register at all when you plug in the Pyro (or any device) and power it up? Do you get the Windows "bing-bong" or does a device show up under Computer?

I wish you had a miniDV camcorder available so you test the connection and the cable. Is that at all possible?

Vista (not on SP2) is about as done as it's going to be -- which is pretty done. Microsoft and third party vendors have remedied pretty much all of its early problems. I'd be really surprised if it was incapable of recognizing a device.

[Bob]

Hi Cozzie, I'm sorry to hear you're having problems also. I'm not a Pyro expert, one should be around shortly, but I would expect that the dip switch settings would be the same for XP and Vista. I'm with Steve in recommending that you check out the cable first. Firewire cables can be bad, even when new.

Vista's support for firewire has been stable for quite a long time. I'm using Vista with no problems with any of my firewire devices. I don't own a Pyro though. FYI, Vista recently went to Service Pack 2 (SP2). If you are applying the automatic updates, you should be at SP2 also. However, even with SP2 the builtin Microsoft firewire driver is about three years old and hasn't needed updating.

You might also want to go into the Device Manager when the pyro is plugged in and see if there are any error indications showing such as a yellow exclamation mark next to the IEEE 1394 entry.

Good luck getting it working!

[Chuck Engels]

I had a similar issue with my laptop recently, had to purchase a 6 pin (large end) Firewire card for the laptop.
For some reason my Canon camcorder did not like the 4 pin (small end) Firewire connection. Now that I have the 6 pin connection on the Laptop everything is fine. Could be that the laptop Firewire connection has a bad chip or is not a OHCI compliant device. The card was about $30 USD from Dell, probably cheaper other places, might be worth a try.

[Cozzie]

Thankyou all, I'll try these things & let you know how I go. Thanks again, Cozzie.

[Cozzie]

Thankyou all,

I've followed up on your suggestions and found the following:

I do get the bing-bong then I plug the firewire cable into the laptop, with the other end plugged into the Pyro, but with the pyro turned off.

When I turn the pyro on, I get another bing-bong and a few seconds later a 'bong-bong' (this is starting to sound silly isn't it?).

I checked Device Manager as suggested and there is a yellow exclaimation mark next to the 'ADS Instant HDTV PCI'. When I click on it, the following error is displayed under device status: 'This device cannot start (Code 10). Click 'Check for solutions' to send data about this device to Microsoft and to see if there is a solution available'. When I click on check for solutions, I get a status bar up for a few seconds saying 'windows is checking for a solution', then it just disappears. I then went to the driver tab & clicked 'update driver', which searched online and displayed a response saying I already have the latest driver.

I guess I'll try the internet for more info on what Code 10 is and keep plugging away at the problem.

Does anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks again for your help on this.

Cozzie.

[Bob]

Here's the Microsoft explanation of the device manager error codes: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310123

This one is more specific: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943104/

Sounds like it may be time to contact ADS.

[Cozzie]

Hi all,

Just a quick update. I've tried half a dozen times over a week or so to log a technical call with ADS. Everytime I try, the website seems to hang when the 'status' bar gets about half way.

Failing that, I tried to email their tech support area, but that just directed me back to the support logging page, which again didn't work. A few days later, I emailed their sales area asking them to forward my issue to their technical area. That was over a week ago & i've heard nothing. In my frustration about 2 nights ago I emailed every address I could find on their website in an attempt for someone to send my issue to the support area or advise how I can contact them. Still, I've had no response at all.

Yesterday: My daughter has a low end Dell & I plugged the Pyro into her machine & it seemed to recognise it (no error in device manager). Her machine doesn't have PE so I tried Windows movie maker, but I couldn't get movie maker to see the camcorder. Having said that, I've never used the product before.

Next step: My brother has a high end toshiba, with the latest version of PE. I've asked him to bring his laptop over to my place. If he ever gets over here for a beer (its Saturday arvo here), I might be able to test it on his machine.

I'll keep this post updated, but as always, if anyone has any more ideas, I'd really appreciate hearing them.

Thanks again,
Cozzie

[Cozzie]

Hi all

I'd like to preface this post with a note that I am about to explode with frustration and sticky-up the joint. I apologise in advance if the post sounds 'pert'.

My brother did come over (as per my last post), but his laptop could not see my wireless internet connection and this seemed to be a problem, so, not being overly technical, I quickly abandoned the attempt. Instead, I lashed out some hard earned cash & bought the latest version of premier elements (v7) with the blind hope that it may be better able to recognise the Pyro box, or at the very least, be able to read the clips from the finalised (or unfinalised) mini-dvd direct from the computer's dvd drive, thus negating the requirement for the Pyro box.

I have just installed Premier elements v7 and (as expected, really) the Pyro box is still not recognised. Also, in 'getting media' direct from the mini disk in the computer's dvd drive, the quality is awful. This leaves me with only one known option known to me & that seems to be to get the pyro box working.

So. For the 10th time, I tried to submit a technical question on the ADS website, but the site hung again & again & again.

I'm completely lost at the moment. I can't believe that I'm the only one to have the problem of getting video from a mini-disk Sony camcorder into PE7 for editing and burning. My circumstances are not all that unique. The pyro box has been a saviour for me for many years, and now that it won't work, what can I do? Surely there is another option? Another 'black box' or other avenue that I can use to get clips from mini-dvd to PE7? My Camcorder is a Sony DCR-DVD755 'digital video camera recorder'. At this point I don't care what it costs. I need a solution to this problem before I tear what's left of my hair out.

I've tried 'getting' clips from an unfinalised mini-DVD, but Windows explorer can't see any files. Finalised files can be seen, edited & burned but are terrible quality.

Surely there must be a solution to this. I really don't want to spend a thousand bucks on a new hard-disk camcorder if I can help it. This may not go down too well with my financial controller (wife).

If anybody has ANY ideas at all, please, please, please help me. The only obvious avenue I haven't been able to get to is ADS Support. Maybe someone could submit my problem on my behalf or provide me with an email address or phone number (I'm in Australia)????

Please, if anyone has any ideas, I'm up for it. I'll try just about anything!

Thanks again everyone. This seems to be the only website where I've had any help at all. HP & others have come up empty. Not even a single reply.

Once again, apologies for the attitude. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Thanks,
Cozzie.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Sorry to hear of your woes, Cozzie.

I am afraid I can't help as I use neither a Pyro or DVD based camcorder but there are folk here who do use those things and I know that they'll be along soon with some input.

Meanwhile, hang on in there...

[rfjg]

I guess I'll try the internet for more info on what Code 10 is and keep plugging away at the problem.

Have alook at http://www.adstech.com/KB/(mdxvxqjotpkez0f0a3ob3oqu)/KB_DisplayKBAnswerDetail.aspx?error=FALSE&KB_ID=39800&path=topten

Looks like possible a firewire chip set compatibility issues with the laptop and the Pyro. You may have to go the same route as Chuck and get a separate firewire connection for the new laptop. See http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=998911&CatId=510

[Bobby]

...I've tried half a dozen times over a week or so to log a technical call with ADS...

I have one, and it works, but I would never buy another of their products again. Zero customer support.

[Chuck Engels]

I don't know what happened to them. When I bought my Pyro Link 4 or 5 years ago they had really good customer service.

[Cozzie]

Thankyou all once again.

I checked out the link to the PCMCIA firewire bus, and if my laptop will take one of these, it could well be the answer. (Its not immediately obvious to me if my laptop has an apprpriate slot. There is something called a 'DS-MS/Pro-MMC-XD' slot? but other than that there doesn't seem to be a lot of vacant realestate.) Here's hoping. I didn't realise it was so simple to install. I expected to be toiling in the bowels of chipsets & motherboards, the idea of which has me breaking out in a cold sweat.

I'm heading off to a local electronics store today with my trusty laptop to see if I can find one of these products that fits my laptop.

I'll let you know how I go.

Once again, thanks for your prompt and wise responses.

Cozzie.

[Cozzie]

A quick update....

The electronics store didn't have one, but advised me that the aforementioned slot on my laptop will take the card if I can get hold of one. I've just finished ordering one online, which I expect to receive in a couple of days.

I'll let you know how I go.

Thanks again,
Cozzie.