From Analog CCD to NI-IMAQ for USB Cameras?

[HTL]

I installed the NI-IMAQ for USB Cameras to obtain video feed from a SONY CCD camera in real-time. This camera only has the S-Video analog output so I used a Plextor PX-TV100U A/D converter to transform this signal to USB feed. It worked at first but after running my Vision VIs a couple of times NI-IMAQ could no longer establish a connection with the camera. And as I shut down my LabView 8.5, the whole computer rebooted automatically. The error messages from LabView 8.5 varied from "Not able to establish a connection to the camera... might be in use" to "No video driver installed...". None of it made any sense because the VI worked sometimes without errors. And the same thing happened to all three computers in my research lab at Tufts University.
I realize that my camera is going through a signal conversion before the USB, but why would NI-IMAQ for USB Cameras crash the whole computer? Also, is there a way to control my camera shutter speed from NI-IMAQ? I thought perhaps the camera wasn't setup right for the image acquisition. Help!!

[Wes_P]

Hi HTL,

IMAQ for USB only works with cameras that are DirectX compatible.  Can you be sure that the information coming out of the A/D converter is compatible?  Also, when you say "it worked at first" what exactly do you mean?  Were you able to do image processing on images brought in via the camera?  If you had Measurement and Automation Explorer (MAX) open and the camera selected at the time you tried to run a program that called the camera, you should get an error like you saw (Not able to establish connection).

Wes P
Applications Engineer
National Instruments