Vista - Vista won't do what XP can: USB Streaming for Video Capture

Hey I wanted to get your opinion on this.

I got my wife a laptop for Christmas, it’s a Compaq c777cl

Our digital video camera is a sony trv22

We want to connect the camera to the laptop to capture the video which is on the mini dv tape.

I have done this already on my old desktop computer thru the usb port and it works fine. But my desktop has XP.

The new laptop has vista.

I have read that vista does NOT support usb streaming and that you need a 1394 port or whatever for a firewire

The laptop does not have this port. It also does NOT have a PCMCIA port or any other type of expansion port on it so a 1394 card which sells for only 20-50 dollars is not an option either.

So I’m stuck.

The only way to get video to this laptop is to put the camera in memory stick mode and then either hook it up (it will recognize the card as drive F) or remove the card and stick it in the digital media slot on the side of the laptop. But the problem with that is the video quality when using memory stick is not nearly as good as when you record like normal on the mini DV tape.

What would you do?

Do you have the correct Vista drivers installed for your camera?

I tried searching for one to link here for you, but I could find no references to "Sony trv22" (All the sony cameras I found are DSC-something). Is that the correct model for you camera?

Correction - You can get the Vista driver for your Sony DCR-TRV22 here : Sony eSupport - DCR-TRV22 - Software Updates & Drivers

Yes its a DCR-TRV22
The link you gave does not contain a driver.... If you select Vista home premium it has one file available for download and its a patch for some editing program they have. If you look at the bottom of the page you provided me with it says all the proper drivers for this camera comes with vista and no downloading is required.

And Sony doesn't even offer a **USB** driver for vista for this camera because Vista does NOT support USB streaming from what I've read all over the place..... But what they're assuming is that you're using firewire......... but vista will not recognize the camera itself via usb, just the memory stick thats plugged into it. I dont want to capture video off the card, thats easy, I want to capture video of the mini dv tape, like I could SO EASILY when I had XP,........ And it doesnt look like its even possible. Am I screwed?

What software are you using to capture video? It may be that the application (and not Vista) just doesn't recognize the device on USB.

I remember on XP, when I was using Adobe Premiere Elements 2, I could capture DV video easily from within the program, but was forced to use a third-party utility (Mainconcept MPEG Encoder) when I had to capture analog video.

You've got to remember that Vista (or any other Os for that matter) can only access the devices according to the capabilities provided by the hardware drivers. If Sony does not provide a USB driver for the camera to allow this function on Vista, then you are pretty much screwed.

This is just another example of why I do not use Sony products. I won't even purchase a Sony music CD because they have a habit of installing backdoor rootkits onto computers without your knowledge...

I've tried it two ways to capture... Windows movie maker, and imagemixer (which came with the camera) Windows movie maker tells me it can't find the device and image mixer just crashes when i go into the capture environment. Take a look at this discussion that I found from a google search and tell me what you make of it, thanks! Vista USB Streaming? Stupid Microsoft.... - Tech Support Guy Forums

In XP when capturing video through USB you are getting a very inferior quality video...it is possible but even in XP it was recommended to use Firewire.

Any PC/laptop without a firewire port must be either pretty old or very cheap. I'm even a bit surpised a laptop shipped with Vista without firewire.

Your cheapest option is to by a new (or swap for a) non mini-dv camcorder.

Firewire has been the preferred option to capture mini-dv since even when I was a video newbie.

Teh strange thing is, firewire cables are usually not supplied with mini-dv camcorders

Vista suuports USB streaming. If it didn't webcams wouldn't work on vista machines. The problem is that Sony won't provide drivers for USB streaming in Vista. It's not officially supported but you can use the XP drivers in Vista to do this as long as your running the 32bit version of Vista.


You may want to go to Sony's web site and download the lates XP drivers for your camcorder. If you try to install the drivers in Vista the installer program will tell you that it doesn't support your OS. To make them work copy the drivers to the Vista machine, right click on the driver file and select "properties." When the properties dialog opens select the "compatibility" tab and set the program to run in compatibility mode for Windows XP. This time when you run the program you may get a message asking if you really want to install the drivers, click yes, and everything will work just like it did under XP.

At least it does for me, though admittedly my Sony camcorder is a different model and your mileage may vary.