Firewire support for cams in shows?

[Hony]

Which sites support video from firewire cameras? Most sites seem to prefer a capture card instead. Any support firewire?

Hony

[Katwomanvid]

Hi Hony,

This was a question that I had for quite some time as well. As I mentioned in another post, I am now using a Sony camcorder with a firewire connection. Until several months ago, I was using a capture card, and I still have it installed in my cam-puter in case anything goes wrong with the firewire connection.

Anyhow, as I recall (don't quote me though! When I first found the solution I understood everything, but it's been awhile), the problem is with the WDM webcam drivers that are included with Windows to work with most USB webcams and popular cam/chat applications. Unfortunately Microsoft has yet to include a built in driver to allow firewire to work with these programs, but i managed to find a shareware program that manages to convert the VFW (Video For Windows) drivers into WDM drivers, and then you can use your firewire equipped camcorder with pretty much any of the applications that work with USB webcams.

This works nicely with the Firecracker software that I use on Vixenvid, and it also works with both Yahoo and MSN Messenger programs, so I assume it would work with Eyeball chat and anything else that works with standard webcams.

The free software is called TrackerCam, but the owners of the site also offer just the driver for $20. I'm still just using TrackerCam, and it works quite well. I just have to manually start the TrackerCam software before I use any webcam programs. Simple as that.

Here's the link to download TrackerCam (and demos to other products including the DV driver):
http://www.trackercam.com/index2.htm

And here's a link to the manual:
http://www.trackercam.com/index2.htm

I hope this is of assistance!

Katwoman

[Hony]

Thanks very much, that's exactly the info I needed!

Hony

[Katwomanvid]

My pleasure Hony, I'm so glad I could help!

This is a wonderful forum, and I feel privileged to be a member, so thank-you as well!

Btw, I just realized that I already had registered an account with the forum. Do I ever feel dumb now. You would think that this may have occured to me when i attempted to register today as "Katwoman" but could not because the name was already in use. Silly me! My apologies for adding to your administrivia.... If you like, feel free to delete my older account called Katwoman.

Kat

[Hony]

Ah right, thought there was something familiar! :-

Get an avatar up then we'll recognise your face (or fur?)

Hony

[Katwomanvid]

Oh and btw, I had it backwards in my post... Firewire requires WDM, while most cam apps use VFW. Other than that I think most of what I said is fairly accurate. In either case, the free TrackerCam software does the trick quite nicely.

Here's another option, but although they offer a free demo, I believe it times-out and you must purchase the software:
http://www.orangeware.com/endusers/webcamdv.html

I don't have any personal experience with this software so I can't provide any feedback.

Oh, and thanks for prompting me to post an avatar Hony

Katwoman

[secret]

You may want to try this http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q310507

[Alijade]

"You may want to try this http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q310507"
Secret...is there a similar page for windows 98se? That link seems to apply only to XP.

[secret]

[Alijade]

Thanks , Secret. Will give those a try (when work stops getting in the way!!)

[Exo]

So lets make it in brief. Is a firewire connected camcorder (using either WebCamDV or TrackerCam) compatible with all software products using the build-in VDM Driver?

[born_to_oc]

enjoy reading:

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/video/20041008/index.html