Well folks I have some good news concerning my problem. I threw my XP machine out the window and bought a Mac.
Not really but at times I was ready to do it. I do have to make an observation concerning Apple computers or more specifically the operating system. First of all the folks at the Apple store I went to are a first class act. When I go to buy my next computer I will seriously be considering a Apple product. Having said that, I must tell you that during the demo of what I believe is called the IVideo software, the software locked up twice and had to stopped and restarted. I was really surprised to see that happen. But I guess that all that really means is the Apple computers are "human" too and not some kind of super computers.
Back to the subject, after spending an afternoon on the phone with my XP expert and spending hours and hours checking and replacing hardware, reinstalling software, device drivers, etc. We didn't find an answer.
So it was back to googling and after several days of searching I found a post from someone that had found a post the described the exact same symptoms as mine. So with the execution of the following command. . . .
regsvr32 %windir%\system32\qdv.dll
Something about registering a class?
Just as soon as I did that the video came pouring into "Movie Maker"!
Having gotten to the point that I could actually get video into a program via firewire I was able to start actually looking at the features of various programs. First thing I did was get rid of Pennacle's Studio version 7. It didn't do anything that Microsoft'w Movie Maker couldn't also do and Movie Maker is more stable. Next I had to decide what new program I was going to buy because Movie Maker doesn't support 16:9 format video which my Canon Elura 100 can produce. And as a side note, 16:9 output directly from the Elura 100 really looks great on my new HDTV. So there were several programs who's latest version will support 16:9 video including Pennacle's Studio 10, Muvee, Ulead's VideoStudio and Adobe's Premiere Elements 3. After spending hours reading reviews from as many sources as I could find, it appeared that the best choice for my needs was Adobe's Premiere Elements 3. I go a copy, installed it and within a half hour of reading the help section I was busy editing video.
Here's four short videos I created from an afternoon of flying a prototype class of electric combat planes being looked at by the AMA SIG, the Radio Control Combat Association, RCCA. These planes are made out of Dow blue foam and covered with colored packing tape. There's nothing special or above average with these video, just my first attempt.
The first video clip is a beautiful P-38 built by Lee Liddle of Dallas, Tx. Here's a still shot of the P-38
Video link [link=http://www.rccagallery.com/video/E3696/Lee_P-38.wmv]E3696 Class electric P-38[/link]
The second video clip is another great build by Lee, a F4U Corsair.
Video link [link=http://www.rccagallery.com/video/E3696/Lee_Corsair.wmv]E3696 Class electric F4U Corsair[/link]
The third one is of Lee's P-51 and Ed Kettler's FW-190 dogfighting
video link
[link=http://www.rccagallery.com/video/E3696/FW-190&P-51.wmv]E3696 Class P-51 & FW-190 dogfight[/link]
The last one is of Lee's Corsair and Ed's FW-190 dogfighting
video link [link=http://www.rccagallery.com/video/E3696/Corsair&FW-190.wmv]E3696 Class Corsair & FW-190 dogfight[/link]
If anyone is interested in more information about RC Combat in general or the electrics in these videos you can go to the forum section of the [link=http://www.rccombat.com]RCCA Web Site.[/link]
Please no bootlegging of these videos to any other web sites including RC Universe without my permission.
So I guess this story has had a happy ending!