Although many people have been able to get complete two-way firewire (IEEE-1394) functionality in Vista over the past couple of years, and continue to do so, Microsoft has quietly made it known that certain functions using IEEE-1394 ports will no longer be supported.
The first of these has been networking via firewire.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943719/en-us
The second of these is the playing back of content out through the firewire port.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944149/en-us
It's the second one that really pisses me off. On my new black box, the firewire ports (2 of them) both work fine for capturing video from my two camcorders and my Sony DVMC-DA2 converter box. Everything works really well. But if I want to send video back out to either camcorder or the converter box, it's a complete bust. Camera controls (start, stop, record, fast forward, rewind) work just fine from all the software that can be used to send content back to them, but it cannot stream the actual content at all... not even a single frame. This function is completely shut off by Vista drivers.
Some third party vendor installs, such as HDV cams and HDV or DV software bundles appear to supplant this in some way, according to many longtime users who have been upgrading all along. I suspect their success is due to probably accruing or carrying forward a proprietary dll and/or sys file, rather than what comes with current iterations of Vista.
But the current Vista drivers for 1394 OHCI bus, DV camcorders, etc. do not support playback out the firewire port anymore. Playback is, in fact, specifically disabled, per the Microsoft support article linked above.
That article (Article ID # 944149 dated January 22, 2008) states very clearly in the introduction, "Specifically, Windows Vista does not support the following AVC functionality: Playing back content across the IEEE-1394 FireWire bus."
If I find a workaround or third party vendor driver or critical file replacement(s) that supplants this intentional crippling of IEEE-1394 output, I'll post about it here. But for now, dual boot to an older version of Windows is the only way I can use that output function with three relatively expensive pieces of video gear.
This isn't a show stopper for me, though. Playing back video and audio content out through the firewire port was great for making VHS tapes, and it was convenient to stream it out of my video editor through firewire to the TV for previewing. If I need to make a VHS tape ever again (hardly likely) I can dual boot to the older OS and do it just as easily.
And, honestly, I haven't previewed on the TV for so long I can hardly remember the last time I might have done it.
So, for me, it's just the principle of the thing. It's a Consumer Electronics Association standards fait accompli, is what it is. And it just plain pisses me off... especially because I just spent the past week trying to troubleshoot this. After spending hours and hours online trying to track down solutions, I finally discovered that article, buried way the hell down in the darkest recesses... down there in the bowels of Microsoft... where few, if any of those affected by this would ever notice.
How clever of them not to put "1394" in the title, eh?
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
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1 comments:
Yes, I went through the same runaround last year trying to send content to a DVD recorder's 1394 port.
Microsoft has it specifically disabled in the drivers. The routine functionality exists, they've simply set the function to null.
It can be activated by modifying the actual assembly code of the driver file. Something that I haven't (yet) attempted to do, but plan to soon.
If they don't want to SUPPORT it, fine. But the IEE1394 standards implement and define it, and it is a function. They should've made something simple as registry value which would permit those who wished to use it to do so at their own risk.
Unfortunately, Microsoft makes a (imo deadly) descision to hard-code it as disabled.
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