Hey,
(i hope i've posted this in the correct place!)

I have a fujitsu siemans ESPRIMO Mobile V5535 notebook.

I have been attempting to connect my DV camera via a firewire (as I believed this was what i needed instead of a USB connection).

However my notebook has no firewire ports. I think i have an express card slot, but the express card i bought with firewire ports attached does not fit into the slot. It appears that near the back of the slot, there is an indentation, therefore i assume i need a card which has a small right angle indentation (i guess around 1 to 2cm) at the back of the card.

I have already been to PC world and Maplin, both stores not selling this product. I was told by pc world that i needed a "PCI express card with firewire adapter", however i type this into websites and i either obtain express cards which are the same length all the way along, or hardware which looks like it would only go into a desktop pc as opposed to a notebook.

Does anyone know where i might be able to obtain this sort of a card, or if not, have another solution to connecting my DV camera to my notebook.

If you need anymore information i will see what i can tell you! Thankyou for your time.

Maddogg

Hello maddogg, welcome to PCHF.

The firewire connection is not necessary unless it's the only connection it will support. Many support USB.

As for the card you bought, was it PCMCIA?

I think your slot is an Express Card slot, but there are two sizes, neither of which are 1-2cm. Can you find out the exact width of your slot? This will tell you the type of card you need (Express 54, or Express 34). However a 34 Express card will fit into a 54 Express slot also.



There are also other types of slot such as SD and Compact Flash, which is why I'm concerned about the size of the slot you described earlier.

ah brilliant!

Its the 2nd diagram.

I didnt word it well last time, thats what i meant by there was a 1-2cm chunk out the back of it.

I found a similar looking card to that one, but none had firewire ports on.


The camera is a Panasonic NV-GS90.

Strangely, windows media maker on my old pc (runs on XP) recognises the DC camera, and allows me to record fine. But we recently reinstalled windows,and now windows XP doesnt recognise the hardware.

On my laptop (fujitsu siemans ESPRIMO Mobile V5535 notebook) which runs on vista, my camera is not recognised by windows movie maker (i perhaps thought this was due to it being a newer version. And it is not recognised on youtube quickcapture or stickam. It works fine on a website called mingleville however. I recieved no software with the camera (there wasnt spposed to be any, i just thought i should mention it)

Anyway, the 2nd card is the type of slot i have. but i couldnt find one with firewire ports attached anywhere.

Maddogg

Oh, they are around: 2 PORT FIREWIRE EXPRESS CARD (you can find them on e-bay as well if buying from the uk just search for firewire express card).

I'm certainly no expert on digital video camera's, but I do know that although Panasonic are generally a good manufacturer, when it comes to PC's, I really don't know why the bother. Their support for software and drivers are always minimalistic, and they make no effort to support what little they do have on their web site like any other manufacturer.

If this model of camera comes with no drivers and software, then you can expect very basic functionality between your PC and Camera, with no extended features. The most important thing for connectivity to be possible is to make sure that the driver appears correctly in Device Manager (Control Panel, System, Hardware tab, Device Manager).

If you still experience problems, please let me know any exact error messages you receive and any screenshots would be helpful too.

Hey again! Thanks a lot for your help!!

I managed to get an express card including firewire off of ebay for about £25!
And my laptop successfully recognises the camera,and automatically pops up with and option to import. which is great!

or so i thought,

for some reason, when i import media to windows media maker, the camera imports the footage (i can even see thumbnails of the footage i've imported) but when i try to do anything with the clips in media maker, there is no sound or image, but windows movie maker does show that the clip is playing.

So i figured trying to upload it in a different format, but the same thing happened. (it automatically uploads as an avi. so i tried the only other option, wmv) but both have the same result. As a wmv, i can play my clips with something called vlc player...but it opens up 4 windows to do so (all playing the same clip :S.

I also tried converting the footage to something else (i tried converting avi files to mpg.'s, but there was no change.

I've also tried to do live capture via windows media maker, but the same thing occurs.

Any ideas? :S

Maddogg

as an update:

the camera also isnt recognised for quick capture on youtube.

hmmmm, sure audio was recorded in the first place?