Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[darkstarz]

I finally got a reply from Tech Support at X10 in regards to the VA11A USB video capture adapter and Windows Vista...


[Edit by TTA: Replaced duplicate post with LINK pointing to one central reply; Repair broken LINK.]

[darkstarz]

I finally got a reply from Tech Support at X10 in regards to the VA11A USB video capture adapter and Windows Vista...


[Edit by TTA: Replaced duplicate post with LINK pointing to one central reply; Repair broken LINK.]

[steven r]

I finally got a reply from Tech Support at X10 in regards to the VA11A USB video capture adapter and Windows Vista, and it's a bit... depressing to me, to say the least, but at least now there's an answer for all the customers out there wondering the same thing. Here is their reply:

Quote: "Greetings!

We do not expect to have VA11A drivers for Vista until May 1st at the very earliest. Remember, a Microsoft operating system is not really trustworthy until the first Service Pack comes out. If you have any more questions, please reply to this email. Thanks for choosing X10!...

Regardless of whether Microsoft ever has a "trustworthy" operating system, as they put it, that sounds like a BS excuse to me.

[MichaelC]

It is a pretty poor way to address the problem. If you're looking for a Vista driver you most likely have already made the decision that Vista is "trustworthy" enough for you to use.

I think that the major hold-up with the VA11A is that the current driver can't be signed, and that they need to pretty much re-write it in order to make it signable. It's a lot of work to re-do a video device driver, and I'd guess that the developers can't get to it yet.

[steven r]

Greetings!

We do not expect to have VA11A drivers for Vista until May 1st at the very earliest. Remember, a Microsoft operating system is not really trustworthy until the first Service Pack comes out. If you have any more questions, please reply to this email. Thanks for choosing X10!

X10 Email Support
http://kbase.x10.com/

While I'm under no illusion that Vista is "the perfect operating system", it has been under enough extensive beta testing that it should be at least as stable as any previous operating system with "Service Packs" installed! I still hold that it is a BS excuse.

It is a pretty poor way to address the problem. If you're looking for a Vista driver you most likely have already made the decision that Vista is "trustworthy" enough for you to use.

I think that the major hold-up with the VA11A is that the current driver can't be signed, and that they need to pretty much re-write it in order to make it signable. It's a lot of work to re-do a video device driver, and I'd guess that the developers can't get to it yet.

I'm inclined to agree. They need to reassess their priorities and fix the driver.

[HA Dave]

To get a device driver "Microsoft approved" as I understand it....  you must pay for the privilege, to cover the cost of Microsoft's review engineers.

I can see where that could cause delays...

What would be a cheaper faster (BETTER) solution would be to update AHP to accept ANY (Microsoft approved) video input device the customer chooses.

[steven r]

...What would be a cheaper faster (BETTER) solution would be to update AHP to except ANY (Microsoft approved) video input device the customer chooses.

That sure seems to make sense to me.
Is there any reason that X10 would want / need to maintain a unique driver?

[MichaelC]

The cost to get the driver signed by Microsoft is not that much these days -- it was much more 5 years ago -- and unless things have changed since I left I really doubt that's a factor in not producing a new Vista driver for the VA11A. We had been talking about it for a while even back in June 2006, and it's pretty much got to do with the development effort involved.

The functional advantage of using a unique driver is having fine access to the still and video capabilities of the device. Also, at the time that the VA11A (and before that the VA10A) was release there weren't any general purpose USB video capture devices available at the price X10 could offer. In order to offer it, we had to write our own driver. The technical advantage is still somewhat important, though that's perhaps less significant than the importance of having people buy the device from X10 instead of someone else.

[Noam]

What about patching AHP to at least accept the "Intel PC Camera" that windows detects it as by default?
That would certainly make installation easier for everyone.

[darkstarz]

What about patching AHP to at least accept the "Intel PC Camera" that windows detects it as by default?
That would certainly make installation easier for everyone.

  Doing so would be to easy and take away from X10's proprietary control over AHP and it's plug-ins, thus making it open for use with other components, which then they would lose money because we could buy other manufacturers products to use in AHP. As always its about the money... greedy is as greedy does, and greed makes profits. 

[MichaelC]

Larry is probably right here. Plus, it wouldn't really be possible to just accept the Intel PC Camera Pro as it appears -- it has the same device ID as the VA11A, but the Intel driver doesn't actually work with the VA11A to get and process video.

[bcollum]

I was told today that the Drivers would not be ready for Vista until May.

[Dan Lawrence]

A friend of mine updated to Vista and uses AHP and the CM15A. When he reinstalled AHP and plugged the CM15 to the usb port and rebooted, Windows saw the interface and reported it properly in the Hardware.

In short, AHP and the CM15A WILL work with Vista.

[steven r]

...In short, AHP and the CM15A WILL work with Vista.

I haven't upgraded to Vista but from the discussions here it seems the main problem people are having is using the cameras.
i.e. X10 hasn't written the drivers for the cameras to work with Vista.

[MichaelC]

X10 hasn't written the drivers for the cameras to work with Vista

Specifically, X10 hasn't re-written the driver for the VA11A so that it can be signed, which allows it to work with Vista. Only Vanguard and AHP's iWitness (or whatever the new name is) require the VA11A. XRay Vision, MultiView, and PanTilt Pro can be used with any normal Windows video device.