Problem with VFW / Capturing Video / Sony DV Camcorder

[kashyap_ankur]

I am facing a problem when trying to record video using VFW library and Sony DV Camcorder.

Below given is the simple code and it works well. I have tested it with 2 web cams - Logitech and Intel.

When I use my Sony DV Camcorder - I see a blank/black window (of the size WIDTH/HEIGHT as mentioned in the code). I find that all the functions - capDriverConnect, capPreviewRate and capPreview - return TRUE even when I get the blank/black window in the name of preview area.

What surprises me more is that the same code and the Sony DV Camcorder were working fine when tested almost a month back using my colleague's machine. The only difference is that I connected the camera using an external Firewire card to his PC. My laptop has a Firewire port so I connect the camera using the same. When I try to use Windows Movie Maker or Windows Explorer to see if the camera/cable is working fine, everything works well.

I was curious to see the results of capGetVideoFormat. I have attached a snapshot which shows the state of BITMAPINFO. The values look strange to me. Never seen this value for biCompression.

Please guide.



capture_window = capCreateCaptureWindow (TEXT ("Capture Window"),
WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE, 5,5, WIDTH, HEIGHT, hwnd, 0);

capDriverConnect (capture_window, 0);
capPreviewRate (capture_window, 66);
capPreview (capture_window, TRUE);