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**wkulecz** · 10 April 2001, 06:34

Follow up.

Tech support replies from ADS and Orange Micro were worthless -- how to fix win9x boilerplate -- proving they never even read enough of my message to see I was using windows 2000. SIIG never replied.

I've moved things around and am up to four of six tested system working. Dell Inspiron 7500 is non-working with SIIG PCMCIA 1394 card. Sony VAIO PCG-SR7k worked with its built in 1394 port and with the SIIG PCMCIA 1394 card proving there is not a hardware problem with the SIIG card.

I suspect junking the Orange Micro PCI 1394 card (most expensive of the 1394 cards) will get me up to five working systems.

--wally.

**wkulecz** · 11 April 2001, 05:03

Final followup.

I can output DV from the 1394 drive with the Dell Notebook if I remove all USB devices. Having any of my three USB devices plugged in causes the "jigsaw puzzle piece" problems.

Still can't output from the notebook's internal drive -- but I was pleasantly surprised I could capture to it -- its too small for any serious video use anyways, hence the 1394 drive.

Removing the Orange Micro 1394 card from the dual PIII system and replacing it with a generic TI chip 1394 card cured the output problem there as well. No problems with USB devices along with 1394 on this system. It too shares the irq for 1394, USB and several other things!

Moral of the story -- "brand names" aren't really better and you don't always get what you pay for! I'll investigate the USB chip used in the Dell vs. whats in the P2BD. I've little real need for USB on the destop system, but its pretty necessary for the notebook, although removing all USB devices before outputting video back to tape is a viable workaround.

--wally.

**mikeads** · 11 April 2001, 08:42

I think the system that had the TI based board in the PC is your answer. We have had alot of trouble with NEC based host controllers such as the Orange Micro card.

I capture and transmit to my PYRO drive all the time with no issues, and this is on a Celeron 400. Also, be sure you have the latest DirectX 8 stuff.

The only known issue with capturing video and writing to an external firewire drive is on the MAC. In this case we recommend adding a second 1394 host controller to the built-in one, and the problem is solved.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by wkulecz:
I recently got an ADS Pyro 1394 Hard Drive Kit. Popped in a 7200RPM 40GB Maxtor (acoustic management and write verify turned off first) plugged 'er in and formated NTFS. Out of the box experience couldn't have been better until I tried to play captured DV from the 1394 drive back to the camcorder -- gray "jigsaw" puzzle pieces flashing over the video. I captured the file from the camcorder to the 1394 drive with zero drops mistakingly thinking "this thing works great!". If I copy this file from the 1394 drive to a "slower" 5400RPM UDMA33 60GB Maxtor on the same system it plays back to the camcorder perfectly.

I've moved the drive and camcorder to three other systems and only one worked -- Athelon 700 with AMD 750 chipset and Dlink 1394 card (TI based). I've tested with Vegas Video capture/playback tool and MSP6 no real difference. Premiere6 seems to lockup if I try to import a file from the 1394 drive to a blank new project, I'll punt on this until the main problem is solved, since I'm still only in learning mode with Premiere6.

Replies from Orange Micro & ADS tech support were very slow in comming, containing only useless boilerplate aimed at win9x users -- they obviously never even read enough of my message to see I was using windows2000! SIIG has not responded at all.

I've permuted the ports on the 1394 cards between camcorder and 1394 drive and also tried "daisy chaining" the camcorder to the 1394 drive. No effect.

If you are thinking about getting a 1394 drive, I'd think twice, and only get it from a place with good return policy!

--wally.</font>

**wkulecz** · 11 April 2001, 15:20

After replacing the Orange Micro combo 1394 10/100 ethernet card with a generic 1394 card and Netgear ethernet card I can output DV to camcorder from the 1394 drive with Vegas Video capture tool, open MSIE and load this forum, open media player and play back another DV clip from the 1394 drive (two DV output streams) and open Eudora to check Email all without a single glitch in the output to the camcorder! CPU usage only runs ~40-60% with all this going on. I have Dual PIII-500's

The Orange Micro network/1394 card worked adaquately for simply capturing DV or outputting DV, but when I added the 1394 drive its poor quality drivers became apparent :-(

Oh well another $150 down the drain along with the $300 for my G200 marvel for lack of decent drivers. Maybe Matrox will come thru in "late May".

--wally.

**wkulecz** · 11 April 2001, 16:17

Curious, I moved the OM combo card to the Athelon system I "borrowed" the generic 1394 card and Netgear ethernet card from. Installed the OM drivers (tested the built-in NEC drivers -- didn't work, puzzle pieces on output) and bingo it works! MSINFO32 shows all hardware sharing IRQ 9 with no conflicts (as is pretty common for W2K ACPI kernel). I'm beginnning to think its the Intel USB chip causing the troubles with my Dell notebook and P2BD and 1394. Its the common thread in the problem systems.

Note my Athelon has has AMD 750 northbridge and VIA "superIO for sound, EIDE, USB etc. I'm about ready to recomment this setup too bad ASUS seems to have discontinued the K7M :-(

Running the dual DV stream test as described in my previous message, with only DV from the 1394 drive to the camcorder with Media Player simutaneously playing a DV clip from the 1394 drive I had no "glitches" on video back to the camcorder. Task manager shows CPU usage 75-90%

Perhaps I can disable the USB port on my P2BD and get the OM card working where its needed.

--wally.

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Success with DV to DVcam from 1394 hard drive?

Success with DV to DVcam from 1394 hard drive?

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