Video camera driver

[Eireann]

A friend of mine was good enough to give me a used camcorder, Samsung VP-D31. It uses tapes rather than memory cards.

However, it didn't come with the software, and I've been going nuts trying to find the driver for it. Samsung Czech Republic suggested that I download Kies software. I did, but it didn't help - either the driver just isn't there, or there's something about the USB cord I'm using.

Ideas?

[Amadan]

It probably requires connecting via a firewire connector for the video. Usually on these mini dv cameras the usb is only for downloading still pictures.

You shouldn't need a driver for firewire (ieee 1394) and on Windows 7 etc Windows Movie maker should work.

[Eireann]

When I connect it, a little window pops up telling me that the driver couldn't be found. Should I look for tape-to-PC hardware?

[Amadan]

From Samsung's web page

What is the difference between a USB connection and Fire Wire on my Camcorder? What software is needed?
USB Connection
There are two uses for a USB connection:
-Can use the camcorder as a web cam.
-Can transfer still images from the memory card.
( N.B: This only works on models with a memory card, you cannot transfer stills from a tape via USB )
The software used is DVC Media 5 (or 6) but if the customer wants to use another DV capture software package it should work.
DVC Media 1 is available under the following models:
VP-D73
VP-D77
DVC Media 2 is available under the following models:
VP-D130
DVC Media 3 is available under the following models:
VP-D15
DVC Media 4 is available under the following models:

VP-D85
VP-D87
VP-D590
DVC Media 5 is available under the following models:
VP-D24i
VP-D26i
VP-D31i
VP-D33i
VP-D39i
DVC Media 6 is available under these models:
VP-D93i
VP-D99i
Fire Wire Connection
A Fire wire connection can transfer footage from the digital tape and from the memory stick to the PC for editing. All models ending with 'i' also have the ability to transfer edited footage back to the camcorder.
The software used is Video Wave, which is supplied on a CD with the Camcorder.

It would appear you HAVE to use the Firewire connection for transfer off a tape.

What OS are you using? In my experience you shouldn't need any drivers for firewire but I'm far from an expert in this area.

[edit]
It would also appear you may have to put the camera in "playback mode".

[Eireann]

Windows 7. A friend of mine who knows about such things gave me the same advice. Well, so much for using the camera as a webcam, not that this was important to me. Thanks!

[Sakka]

Well, so much for using the camera as a webcam

Don't be so sure of that. My brother was using his JVC mini-DV video camera as a webcam for awhile, through the firewire port. I don't know exactly how he did it, all that he would tell me was that he could select it as a video source in the messenger that he was using.

ETA:
This was approximately around 2003-2005 or so, with Windows XP Home.

[Amadan]

Samsung's web site (I wish I could link to it but it's all java and script based so the links are useless - hence the cut and paste) would appear to suggest it's possible using USB but if the driver isn't on Samsung's web shite and Windows Update can't get a driver you might be SOL.

Also even if you could get your hands on drivers it's quite possible there were only drivers written for up to XP (major driver arch changes on Vista/7 - not to mention the whole 32 versus 64 bit issue) so you might not get them working anyway.

For what it's worth I never had much luck using a Sharp mini-dv camcorder as a webcam. It worked on the Mac but never on Windows. In the end we gave up and bought a cheap usb webcam made by Microsoft.

Personally I hate the things and have masking tape stuck over the one built into the laptop screen but each to their own.