I lost the driver disc for Sony (TVR140E Pal) and the USB lead I used to have. Now I cant transfer to my laptop its an Emachine (e640) with Windows 7 OS. I know the camcorder is old but I like to use it and need to upload the digital tapes I have used

[Willie911]

I lost the driver disc for Sony (TVR140E Pal) and the USB lead I used to have. Now I cant transfer to my laptop its an Emachine (e640) with Windows 7 OS. I know the camcorder is old but I like to use it and need to upload the digital tapes I have used. What is the best solution?

[blaireau_photo · Accepted solution]

Hello Willie911 - welcome to the Sony Forums

I have just taken a look at the specification of your laptop and it appears that there is no 'Firewire' input. Because of this, the best option to explore will probably be connecting vire USB.

The first thing I would advise you to do is pick up a replacement USB cable. The good news on this front is that they are available online for anything between £2 and £5 and here is an example:

http://www.suntekstore.co.uk/Retractable-USB-A-Male-to-5-Pin-Mini-USB-Charge-and-Sync-Cable.html

However, in the past I have occasionally found that a trip to Poundland or similar has been successful for this cable type. Either way, replacing the cable shouldn't prove difficult and even by typing 'TRV140 USB Cable' into eBay, you will get some pretty reasonable options. Once you have your replacement USB cable, connect your camcorder to any available USB socket on your laptop to see if Windows 7 automatically finds drivers for it. If this is successful, you will be able to import footage to pre-installed software such as Windows Movie Maker or whichever software you choose to use. If this doesn't work, you may be able to install the XP drivers which are available here but that can be a little hit and miss. When I have had this problem in the past, I have used an old copy of Windows XP to install a 'backup' operating system to my PC and then used this for transferring video from my old Sony camcorder as you can save videos into a folder that can be accessed by both operating systems i.e. if you have a folder named 'c:\Camcorder Videos' this will be visible in both environments.

I hope you have some success with the above. If not, as a last resort, if you still have the cable for connecting your camcorder to a regular TV you could get a USB Video Capture device such as this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0011N9QNC/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_s=lpo-to...

This device will take a digital copy of videos in real time with perhaps a small reduction in the image quality.

Thanks,

Simon

[Willie911]

Simon. Many thanks for the prompt reply in reference to my dilemma with the digital 8 upload to my laptop I hope to get a chance to look into the different solutions that you suggest.

Also thanks for the kind introduction to the forum.

Up the Dubs we have just won the All Ireland Football Final and having a little tipple.

Regards Willie Barr.

.

[blaireau_photo]

Excellent news - and good luck with the video transfer

Simon