panasonic ag EZ35 video camera

Make sure your firewire drivers are installed for your PC and in network Neighborhood (strange place for it) check to make sure that the firewire port is not "disabled." Firewire, unlike USB is not as plug and play friendly. Have you used the firewire port for anything else or is this the first device you've tried to use on your PCs firewire connection?

HI. The firewire port is definately working (it's actually firewire port on a PCI card) because another device works perfectly... but connect up the panasonic camera and nothing happens, and nothing sees it...

You may need to manually install a generic driver.
1. The camera should be listed in the system device manager under "other devices" as "AV/C Subunit."
2. Choose "update driver" and choose "install from a list or specific location".
3. Then choose "don't search I will choose the driver to install."
4. You should find it under "Sound Video and Game controllers" and then under Panasonic. (I think Generic might work too) and
5. Choose "Panasonic Tape Device.

I'm not too sure what you are trying to do with the camera.

If you are capturing video off it you may need to use a capture application and then get the camera to play and thus capture the video that way.

That's how I did it with a Sony Digital camera.  I can't remember exactly but I do believe that Win 2K did not recognize it but captured the data off it OK.

For capture applications I've just looked at my machine and I would have used one of the following:

WinDV Capture
DVIO Capture

HI - well I'm trying to record to the DV tape on the camera. I'd like to be able to press play on the computer and then the panasonic will record what is being played onto it's DV tape?

I'm not sure if your camera is capable of that.  One link I've found indicates that the firewire is only for output.

http://www.oreika.com/video/agez35.htm

However I've found another link elsewhere that indicates that the firewire is used for input and output on your model camera.  I can't verify which one is correct.

I've found a manual for the EZ50 from retro.com which indicates that this model supports the type of copying operation between similar type cameras.  One camera is set to record and the other is set to play and copying can occur.  However it indicates that in some cases that copying or dubbing may not occur.

Now WinDV and DVIO Capture do permit sending data to a digital video device.  You could try either or both of them and see how they work.  You may have to experiment and see how it goes.