Hi all,

I just received my Sony 330 and have been trying to hook it up to my Win2K laptop, with little success. I installed the Image Transfer, USB Driver, and Imagemixer software.

My laptop recognizes the camcorder via USB connection, but when I try to connect via iLink, it doesn't see a device at all.

I'm not sure if my firewire cable is bad, or if I need some type of iLink driver for my camcorder.

I would think that when I make the connection, Windows would at least acknowledge that a device has been connected. This leads me to believe that my cable is the problem, but I'm not sure at this point.

Can anyone lend some expertise?

Thanks.

Hey I'n having the same problem. Any help would be great. thanks

I found out that the cable I was using was at fault. Apparently, not all firewire cables are the same. I bought one from Sony that specifically said that iLink was supported, and everything worked fine.

Hi there, I am new to this forum and am of course new to DV, having just bought my first camcorder, a sony pc105. It works well but i am having problems getting DV ffed into both my Mac and my pc and i am not sure where the problem lies.

Firstly, for mac, I am using a Powerbook G4 with Imovies and everytime when i connect my camcorder to it, imovie 2.0 hangs but there's "DV-in" signal appears on the LCD of the camcorder.

Secondly, with my pc, an AMD system with 1.5gb of ram, using sony pixela sofware or windows movie maker, both of these softwares weren't able to detect LCD in this case too.

I have to mention, the firewire i bought isn't a normal firewire cable, in the sense that it's retractable, so it's a lot thinner that normal firewire cables (meaning the dimension of the cable), so could this b where the problem lies?

Thanks, pls help!

hey im have problems getting the video sent to my computer. i've tried many editing software besides imagemixer. i am using the i-link cable from sony and its a sony computer.

any help would be greatly appreciated

Hmm, if using sony ilink cable doesn't actually solve the problem for everyone then where does the problem lie? Can anyone provide some help here?

Werne,
i have used my pc105 successfully with imovie 3 and a powerbook g4. imovie had no problems recognizing the pc105. i did have a lot of unexpected quits from imovie at first but once i trashed the preferences for it i haven't had a problem. it also works beautifully with final cut pro.
have you tried a different cable yet? or if you know someone that has another video camera that has firewire you could test your mac to make sure the firewire port on it isn't bad. i would start the process of elimination if you can by testing the port on the camera, the port on the powerbook, the cable, until you come across the problem. unfortunately this means borrowing other cameras, cables, and finding a computer that has a firewire port that you know is good.
if your pc and your mac don't recognize the camera, it sounds like it could be either a bad cable or a bad port on your camera.

chad

After 4 days of trouble shooting this problem (including two cables, and a trip to the local computer wizard) I have been unable to get this camera recognized via the fire wire connection. I was about to blame the EBAY guy that sold it to me when I ran accross this message board.
With so many people having problems with this SONY equipment I now doubt the camera is broken. I recommend everyone contact SONY 1-(800)-488-SONY (7669) and start collecting names to see how helpful they can be. Reply back to this message board with the Tech name and everyone hound him.
This is probably a SONY problem.

__________________
FINNSTER, NJ

I HAD A SIMILAR PROBLEM WHEN CONNECTING TO MY COMPUTER, UNTIL I REREAD THE OWNERS MANUAL FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME!
IT SEEMS IN ORDER FOR THE COMPUTER TO "SEE" THE FIREWIRE yOU MUST REMOVE THE MEMORY STICK WHEN TRANSFERING VIDEO, OTHERWISE THE COMPUTER ONLY SEES THE MEMORY STICK . IT WORKED FOR ME! GIVE IT A TRY.

GOOD SHOOTING!

Having read a few other posts on other sites I think the problem is as follows:
ANyone who uses a 4pin to 6 pin firewire cable is liable to shortcircuit their firewire port on their camera. As a result they will be no longer able to use it, this is due to the 4-6 pin cable containing an extra voltage link which can sometimes destory the port on the camera.

Although I didnt realise it, it does say ot use an iLINK cable (4pin to 4 pin) in the manual.

Anyone know where you can find a good Sony engineer in N.Ireland?

I USED THE SONY WIRE, AND AFTER REMOVING THE MEMO STICK IT ALL WORKED FINE.
ON ANOTHER NOTE; MY 330 HAS BEEN SENT TO SONY REPAIR BECAUSE AFTER MUCH EXPERIMENTATION I DON'T SEEM TO BE ABLE TO GET THE VIDEO QUALITY I EXPECTED. COLORS SEEM TO "SPLOTCH" AND THE OVERALL LOOK IS A BIT FUZY, NOT WHAT YOU WOULD ECPECT FROM THIS CAMERA. I HOPE IT IS DEFECTIVE AND SONY WILL MAKE IT RIGHT! OTHERWISE I AM GOING TO SEE IF SONY WILL CREDIT ME TOWARDS A VX 2100. LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE SATISFIED WITH YOUR PICTURE QUALITY.

GOOD SHOOTING
JJ FLASH

if I use the sony wire (4 pin to 4 pin), do I need a new firewire card that takes a 4 pin connector?

WITHOUT PULLING MY COMPUTER OUT AND LOOKING AT THE CONECTION I ASSUME THAT THE FIRE WIRE CARD HAS BOTH 4 PIN AND 6 PIN. ONLY 4 FITS 4 AND 6 FITS 6 TO PLUG IN THE WRONG ONE WOULD PROBABLY CAUSE DAMAGE THESE PLUGS ARE VERY SMALL AND REQUIRE A MAGNIFYING GLASS (AT LEAST FOR MY 60 YEAR OLD EYES) TO SEE. I HAD A FIRE WIRE CARD INSTALLED AND THE NUMBER OF PINS NEVER CAME UP. I WOULD ASK THE TECH AT YOUR COMPUTER SHOP TO MAKE SURE B4 YOU GO AND PLUG STUFF IN.
GOOD SHOOTING
JJ FLASH

I borrowed a friends camcorder and used the same cable and everything worked fine. Tried mine again and things still didnt work.
Guess the firewire is done, will try Sony to get it fixed.

I bought a brand new Sony DVR PC109 from pixmania.com just before xmas. After using up my 5 DV tapes i set about recording them onto my G4 Powermac using Imovie, it worked great the first time, then ever after that whenever I connect the camera to the mac it knocks out my entire firewire bus! In system profile under firewire it just says "No Information Found" I think the firewire ports have blown so i bought an additional pci firewire card and all my firewire peripherals work fine except the Sony Cam. I have a firewire soundcard and hardrive. I have tried all combinations of plugging in just the Sony Cam alone, removing the memory stick, reseting the pram on the Mac, I have plugged it into my G4 Powerbook and it doesnt see it either. Also when it is connected the edit lcd screen on the Sony goes weird and text flashes. I sent it back to Sony with a detailed description of the problems and all they did is send the camera back with a invoice saying fault code a1 not working, fix code b1 replaced. Its still not seeing my Mac/s!! Im tearing my hair out now over this, I emailed Pixmania.com asking if I could get a refund or swap for a Canon instead and they said no. Sony said they have to recieve an item back 3 times or more to just consider replacing it. That sux! so I have to waste my money sending it back and forth several times before getting yet another PC109 that might just be the same?!@

Please Help Somone, theres a few of us in this similar situation here is Sony at fault?

Oh lastly.. Im confused about the 4 to 4 pin firewire cable comment, isnt all computer firewire cards the bigger 6 pin port? there are plenty of 4 to 6 pin ilink cables for sale..