I've set up my equipment so I can digitize old VHS tapes. I have a VCR going into my camcorder, which is then going into my computer via firewire, and then I'm capturing the video to AVI using WinDV. This has been working fine, but it's strangely unreliable. For example, today I was capturing a tape with three recordings on it, and everything was going smoothly. But once the first recording ended, WinDV seemed to stop getting the video signal. The second recording started up, but all I saw in the preview window was solid gray.

So I tried queuing up the tape at the right point to start capturing the second video, and closed and relaunched WinDV. Nothing. Even less than before. It was just solid black, like there was no input device at all. I don't think this is a problem with the application, because I tried opening up VirtualDub and using its capture tool, but it gave me the same result: a black preview window.

At the moment, it appears that if I restart my computer, I'm able to capture again, but this problem keeps occurring, and because I plan on capturing a lot, constant rebooting isn't an attractive option for me.

Does anyone know where I should start looking?

The next time you get the black screen problem, try unplugging and replugging the firewire cable.

If I understand things correctly, this will essentially "reboot" the firewire and video capture drivers without the need to reboot the entire computer.

Trying VirtualDub was a good diagnostic step. It narrows the problem down to the PC's drivers, or something external to the computer such as the video camera, its firmware, or the cabling.

Also, if unplugging and replugging the firewire cable *works*, then there might be a software-only way of accomplishing the same task. I wonder if there is a command-line equivalent (or perhaps a third party utility) that can programatically disable/enable a driver in much the same way that you can use "net stop" and "net start" to bounce a Windows Service...

Thanks for the replies. Unless it matters which end of the cable I unplugged, I've also tried that solution. It makes sense. However, I just got the same problem. I even tried uninstalling the camera while it was plugged in, then installing again. Same problem.

I'm betting it's something about the camera, then.