Thats what I heard as well.
Now, my question is- is there anything I can use to get the evi to work on my laptop? Will the Osprey work? Or will I get it, and have the same problem because of my 64 bit os?
I am willing to get what will work. But I need to know what will work, before I go out and buy anything or return anything.
I guess it boils down to, what will make the Sony EVI work with my laptop?
Osprey don't make usb capture cards that I know of, only pci internal desktop cards.
See you said other programs don't cause a problem recording from the camera, that leaves me to think its the performer application. Have you contacted Vsmedia and spoken to a developer of the performer application and asked if it supports 64bit operating systems and if so does it work with 64bit drivers for the capture cards ? I would call them and ask that first. If they say it works I would look at your settings in the performer application and make sure it is using the correct format input, be it RGB,IYUV or I420 etc. Also making sure if it is set to NTSC or PAL, It should be NTSC if you have an American model Sony EVI and PAL if a European model. Having any one of these set wrong will cause distortion too. You said you can see the dazzle in the perfomrer application and sounds to me the drivers are being detected so must be something wrong with the input format or the performer application does not like something to do with the 64bit drivers and operating system setup.
You really have 3 options here how to fix the problem. The first being to install Windows again but install the 32bit version, if you have the original microsoft disks you can easily do that, if you have a restore disk that came with the laptop you may have to contact the laptop company and ask them for a 32bit restore disk for that laptop or contact Microsoft and ask if they would be kind enough to send you a 32bit version of your operating system and if they can give you a 32bit key for registering it and to cancel the 64bit key. Microsoft will probably give you a download page with a key via email or their licensing page.
Option 2 is call Vsmedia like I said and ask them to confirm if their is a 64bit operating system problem with 64bit drivers for capture cards and ask if they can update the performer application to support 64bit operating systems and drivers for capture devices.
Option 3 dual boot (stick 2 operating systems on same computer) keep the 64bit vista you have and install XP 32bit or Vista 32bit or Windows 7 32bit. (I would personally go with XP Pro 32bit for your system and use that part for your work on site).
I don't have a copy of the performer application here to test your problem out with, when I did get a copy of it, it asked for a key and I gave up on it.
Contact Vsmedia I would say 1st and confirm any performer application problems (if there is any with 64bit), if they confirm it should all work with 64bit and they have tested it to work, we can go on from there trying to cure your problem. I know the dazzle works with 64bit operating systems and works very well with video editing software.
Shout back and let me know how you get on, worse comes to worse stick 32bit windows on that laptop, no need for 64bit operating system on a 4GB laptop, if you had more then 4GB memory then 64bit would be worth having, 32bit operating systems access upto 4GB of memory space without any problems and in most cases have better drivers that are supported by more software.
64bit operating systems are for power users that do huge file editing like HD video and very very large images in photoshop or rendering/databases. So really a bad idea to have a 64bit operating system on that laptop if you dont plan on adding more then 4GB memory to it (I bet that is the max it will take anyway). So all it will do to a non-power user is create such problems with supported programs in 64bit environment.. 64bit is the domain of users that know what they are doing for now and are willing to live with odd things that don't work or have another operating system setup to dual boot into a 32bit environment. Windows 7 allows certain computers with the correct processor (virtual pc enabled/virtualization) to run XP inside of it's 64bit windows 7 or 32bit windows 7, reason for that is to help run legacy software and hardware that does not work right in windows 7 for some reason.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/windows-xp-mode.aspx
Regards
Nabil
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