About using the Sony DCR-HC21 on Vista without PicturePackage?

Question

I have the Sony DCR-HC21 digital camcorder and used to put video footage on my desktop PC with Windows XP with a USB cable. The quality wasn't so important since it was basic footage of various events for youtube.

Now I have a laptop with Windows Vista and it seems like it won't let me connect my camcorder with regular USB, which I would have been okay with. So I need a FireWire/i.LINK/IEEE cable thing.

When I get the cable and PCI Express card thing and connect the camcorder, will Vista then recognize my camcorder and install a driver that's hopefully already stored in Vista? Or will I have to download the new version of PicturePackage or whatever it's called from Sony's website and install all of that? I really don't want PicturePage and would rather not install all of that. I just want to install the driver to use the camcorder with Windows Movie Maker.

Answer 1

Vista needs to recognize the IEEE1394a (Firewire/i.Link) port. Once that happens, the communication protocol to get MovieMaker or WinDV will be fine... the camera needs to be in "Play/Edit" mode. You do not need PicturePackage when the firewire port is working properly.