I have just recently purchased a Sony DCR-HC96E miniDV camera.I am very pleased with it, the picture quality from camera to vhs tape is very good. However, I was very dissappointed with the quality of video capture using the usb cable and windows movie maker to produce a DVD. After reeding other posts on this forum I have purchased a Firewire card and cable, and downloaded the try out version of Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0.
However i cannot get the computer to recognise the camera, either in adobe or windows . Any ideas?

A miniDV camera is one of those devices that Windows XP should auto-detect the moment it is connected to the PC and switched on - just like a USB flash drive, for example. If this isn't happening then there may be something wrong with your PC, the firewire card, the cable, or your camera. What OS are you using? You could: 1. Borrow another camera to see if the PC auto detects that one 2. Try your camera on another PC that is known to autodetect without problems. 3. Try a different firewire cable My money would be on there being nothing wrong with the camera, but with the PC/Card/Cable instead. BTW, Movie Maker is perfectly capable of capturing footage via firewire - the quality of the material captured to your PC will be no better if captured with Elements.

Thanks for your help. I am running XP. Can`t find what the problem is. I am going to try another firewire card/cable. The existing card does show on the device manager though.

Did you get a CD along with the camcorder? It might have driver software you need to install first or an editing program especially for Sony camcorders and you need to access the camcorder through it. Does the camcorder show up in My Computer, below where your DVD and memory card readers are listed?

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The cd that came with the camera only had usb drivers. Apparantly the drivers for firewire are part of the XP O/S. The camera does not show in the device manager when turned on.

Try first connecting the firewirecable to your pc, then connect the cable to your camera, turn on the camera and then turn on your pc.
If you do it in that order it should work, if it doesn't try connecting your camera onto another pc, preferably using another firewirecable.
If that doesn't work either the problem is with the camera and it has to be checked.

If it does work then you have to look further at your own pc:
try another cable, if that doesn't make a difference try another firewire card (You don't have to worry about drivers) and last thing you can do is reinstall windows. (Isn't videoediting fun? )

Thanks for the help. It was a faulty cable. Now working perfectly with much improved picture quality.