Panasonic's got me bitter and mad

[Captain]

So less than two years ago I bought the PV-GS39 Mini-DV camcorder. Great image and sound quality, poor battery life - worked fine in XP with firewire.

Yesterday I tried to capture footage to Premiere Pro CS4 on Vista Ultimate x64 and it wouldn't even detect the camera with the firewire. I spent at least two hours looking for solutions in the form of firmware or drivers but no luck.

It's like Panasonic and Vista have combined to create the ultimate hybrid pain-in-the-ass experience for a customer. Anything that can be done or am I shit out of luck?

[Tormentius]

Blame Panasonic for the lack of 64 bit drivers, not Vista. Writing those are the responsilibity of the vendor and a lot of them didn't bother to write 64 bit drivers which really sucks for their customers.

[Captain]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compat ... &os=32-bit

According to that page, it's compatible (which is completely false).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true that one of firewire's biggest advantages is that it doesn't require software to be compatible? It sounds like it's Vista's fault for not detecting the device and Panasonic's fault for refusing to provide support for their customers.

[Tormentius]

Did you notice the Free Download Required link and install that?


http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-elec ... -GS39.D#ts

Edit: Nevermind, that link is for 32 bit compatibility...

[Captain]

I don't believe this...it actually works!

With the hundreds of Google results full of angry customers claiming GS39 Vista incompatibility, I thought it was hopeless. Just for shits and giggles I plugged it in via firewire and it worked! I pushed the smaller pin into the camera harder and it just suddenly snapped into place and the device is now detected.

Just stupidity on my end. Thank goodness I'm a persistent bastard.

PS. You should probably remove that poll

[+JuggerNaut+]

rofl.

[Captain]

I'm having a good laugh about it too

[obsidian]

So.... you never tried actually plugging it into your computer? GJ!

[Scourge]

Not all the way apparently.

[Doombrain]

...

[Captain]

Turns out I'm not a mornan after all. Damn firewire cable was defective.

[Scourge]

That should have been the first thing you checked. Start with the simple, then work your way out to blaming MS and Panasonic.

[Dark Metal]

Oh, I fixed the poll question. And I made it so anyone that's voted can change their vote to better reflect the new question.

[Captain]

That would mean there are 9 morons on this forum named Mazda.

[Dark Metal]

You posted the question sparky, I only fixed it. Nice to see people adjusting their votes accordingly tho.

[Captain]

Although the cable was broken, it's the 4-pin Firewire plug on the camera itself that seems a bit out of order. The cable needs to be held in at an angle for it to work.

[Doombrain]

make your mind up

[Captain]

Final answer.

[+JuggerNaut+]

that's a pole.