Hello there

 Firstly, many apologies for being a) stupid, b) slow, and c) repetitive.

 I bought a student priced copy of Avid Media Composer over the summer as I thought it would be a good investment for both personal and professional use. I was unable to load it on my PC so took it to the shop and they did it for me (for £70 - I was desperate!).

 I had a bit of Avid training in work and when I returned home I decided to start capturing some material. Anyway I got this message:

"The port "OHCI" is busy and cannot be used for deck control."

I realise there are already a number of threads relating to this but I don't understand them, sorry! Please could someone kindly explain to me in simple terms what you mean by a 'bus' and a 'deck' and how I solve this error message. I'm on a Toshiba laptop and I'm using a Canon miniDV cam. Sorry - I'm not very technical.

Many thanks for your help in advance! I'm currently working on my MA (alongside my job) and it's due in soon (well, in three weeks, and I have to edit a seven min film.  Argh!)

Best wishes

 Amy (UK)

With your camera connected with a firewire cable

In Avid click on the Project Window. 

Click on the Settings Tab

Scroll down to Deck Configuration (should hhave a tick on the left hand side of it)

Double click on it so a configuration page opens up.

There should only be dark grey box in the there (possibly with two tabs in it

Left mouse click on it near the outside and a red outline shows up.

Hit the delete button.  Repeat if there are more than one configurations in this box.

Click on add channel

In the pop up box that appears select Channel type   Firewire    and  Port OHCI

Select OK and No to auto configure your deck

Select Add Deck (for your mini DV camera)

Half way down the pop up that appears find Device.  click on the left box and choose Canon

Click on the right box and choose your camera model number from the drop down list  (or one with a very similar number)

Click Apply from the bottom right of the main panel.

Open the capture tool and (with a little luck) you will be able to start capturing.

Hi Andrew

 Thanks so much for your reply (really detailed too which is just what I need:)

 Unfortunately it still isn't working! The bottom half of the Capture tool is working in sync, so to speak, with my miniDV cam but the top half isn't. So I can mark in and out points on my tape, and play and pause my tape from the capture tool, but when I try to capture I get a message saying:

"Exception: No tracks have been chosen. Please select at least at least one track."

 At the top of the Capture tool it says "Video: Host-1394" "Audio: Host-1394". The are no other options on the Video tab but under the Audio tab it also says Windows Mixer but it's greyed out and can't be selected.

Any clues? I am still.... clueless :'(

At the top of the Capture tool, you should have tracks for Video and Audio (V A1 A2...). Are you saying you don't see those?

Amy,

1. Welcome to Avid and the Forums

2. I hope you get to the bottom of your problem. I thought Andrew's suggestions should have helped. But apparently not.

and finally........

AmyS:

I bought a student priced copy of Avid Media Composer over the summer as I thought it would be a good investment for both personal and professional use.

AmyS:

At the top of the Capture tool it says "Video: Host-1394" "Audio: Host-1394"

With DV it is possible Avid recognises the machine control but not the audio and video signals.

When this happens you can sometimes make it work by quitting the capture tool. pause for coffee then enter the capture tool again. Select the Video and audio tracks you require and try again. 

If Avid still does not recognise the audio video signals it will turn those tracks off again.

In this case you will probably be best to quit Avid, Shut down the computer.

Turn off your camera. unplug its cable and have another coffee.

Plug in the camera and turn it on with a tape in it. Start the computer.

Let Windows find the camera. Dont let Windows start to try and capture with it.

Start the tape playing

Open Avid. Open Capture tool, select a tape name and the bin you want to capture too.

With a little luck  you will be up and running.

(several of the above may not be required but the procedure covers every trick I know to make Avid recognise the audio and video input from a DV camera/device.

Hello again

 Thanks a lot for the responses. I can't explain to you how much help they are!

 As you may have gathered I am never going to an I.T nor an Avid wizz. I could only ever dream of using this software for financial gain. I bought the software to edit my MA project on and also to use for my own vids to practice on. At work we have fully qual'd editors, but the way the industry is going I need a basic understanding and appreciation of Avid although I will only ever be capturing material at work and that will be done on work machines with licenced software.

 So.... I have managed to start capturing but I'm still having a couple of gripes. I will try and muddle through with a bit of common sense and my manual in hand and only pester you again if absolutely necessary! :)

 One more piece of advice would be appreciated though... I am using a Toshiba laptop which has Vista installed and 2GB of RAM. Would you recommend that I bumped this up to 4? I think I've read somewhere that Avid on a Vista PC/laptop should really be run on 4. Is this true?

Huge thanks once again!

The more ram, the better; if it's Vista 32 bit it can only access slightly over 2 GB ram, but with the proper Avid patch MC will use almost 3 GB ram; if it's 64 bit Vista and Your laptop can accomodate 8 GB ram go for it, otherwise 4 would be better than 2 anyway.

The problem with Canon miniDV cam as with DV cams from other mfgs is that they use a single IEEE port that serves multiple functions.  The port use is menu driven.  While you can access the port with the host IEEE cable connected to the camera, you can only make changes and save the changes with the camera disconnected from the firewire cable.  Once you have selected the correct choice and saved, then you can connect the firewire cable.  There should be a knowledge base entry detailing this further

see http://cdn.pinnaclesys.com/SupportFiles/attach/SUPPORTED_DEVICES_FOR_AVID_EDITOR_PRODUCTS.pdf

for specifics on how your camera is supported by Avid

drbgaijin:

Sorry to put a damper on your plans, but the Academic priced MC is for educational purposes only. You may not use it for professional use.

douglas he clearly said he's using it for an academic project. why give him a hard time?

                  - sasha

sasha1:

douglas he clearly said he's using it for an academic project. why give him a hard time?

Sorry Sasha, but I don't see where I am giving Amy a hard-time.
If you read the first post of the thread you would see that she wrote:

"I thought it would be a good investment for both personal and professional use."

I responded in an informative manner. No hard times even hinted at.

Then later she explained the situation.

Regards,
Douglas