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DV camera to iMac on Firewire 400 = nothing happening

T

trevorh

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 16, 2008
4
0
New iMac 24, Leopard. I connect a firewire cable from a Sony TRV33 digitial video camera to the firewire 400 port on the iMac, and switch the camera on to VCR so I can get the movie off.... This works fine on windows - it automatically starts up my movie capture /edit software.

On the mac, it does nothing of course.. but even in imovie, FCP, iChat etc, the camera is not seen. I have no other camera or mac to test with, only windows. Any ideas or known probs?

Other still cameras work on USB ok.

Appreciate your help.
Trevor
 
trevorh said:
New iMac 24, Leopard. I connect a firewire cable from a Sony TRV33 digitial video camera to the firewire 400 port on the iMac, and switch the camera on to VCR so I can get the movie off.... This works fine on windows - it automatically starts up my movie capture /edit software.

On the mac, it does nothing of course.. but even in imovie, FCP, iChat etc, the camera is not seen. I have no other camera or mac to test with, only windows. Any ideas or known probs?

Other still cameras work on USB ok.

Appreciate your help.
Trevor
Click to expand...

Trevor -

You aren't plugging this into a hub are you? I had similar problems when I tried to connect my camera through a hub but when I connected it directly it worked fine.

You might also try using a different cable to rule out the possibility of a bad cable.

SR
 
Along with making sure your firewire is connected to a powered hub or directly into your computer, when in iMovie are you activating camera mode? On the lower right side there is toggle between camera and editing/cutting mode.

One of those two should set you up so you can digitize your video.

Good luck! :apple:
 
Direct to new iMac

No hub - connected direct to new iMac24 intel, firewire 400 port. In iMovie there is a capture button which shows a feed - there is a camera dropdown which only list (and only shows) Built-in camera nothing else. Also in FCP I see no camera setup feature
 
In system profiler, the filerwire option lists only:

FireWire Bus:

Warning: Unable to list FireWire devices.
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec

It does not see the trv33 at all\ ;)
 
1 step nearer

Following advice from other forums, I rebooted 3 times with Cmd-Alt-P-R and then in iMovie it did once show the dv camera feed. I rewound, play etc and coul control the camera... but then after a few seconds it lost it again and now even after rebooting x number of times it still doesn't see it.

So it seems to be a mac problem, perhaps leopard.

Any ideas?
 
Sounds like power to the firewire is wonky. This is not uncommon in Apple's history (firewire port issues).

If you can, get a powered firewire hub, and try hooking up the camera through that and see if your camera doesn't remain connected. Regardless, though, sounds like you might want Apple to look into your firewire port.

Good luck.
 
Same issue - Unable to list Firewire devices

I have exactly the same issue, but I've done some tests and it really does sound like something is wrong with Leopard.

Tests performed:
Connected by Firewire my GS300 to my Mac 10.5.2 - does not recognise anything connected at all. Same problem that trevorh is having.
Connected another firewire device to my Mac 10.5.2 - connected fine. So the Firewire connection on the Mac is fine. (The Apple Service Centre also confirmed this themselves).
Isolated the firewire cable and that's ok.
Reset the PRAM.
Turned off, reset and changed the GS300 settings while connected and while not connected etc etc, but nothing shows up.

The most telling test was that I connected my GS300 to a Mac running on Tiger - and this worked fine! All I did was plug it in and turned it on and I could control the camera no problem.

So with all that in mind, where do we go from here? It seems like I'll either need to wait for Apple to recognise the problem or buy a new camcorder. Just spent over $2000 AU on a new Mac. This sort of **** shouldn't be happening.

Anyone? Anyone?
 
mini DV camcorder not recognised by Leopard

I've got the same problem.
Brand new 3.06Gz iMac not recognising Canon MV3i.
iMac works fine with my neighbours' Sony miniDV camcorder but not with my Canon mini DV camcorder.
No one seems to have any idea why. The firewire port and cable are fine and the Canon MV3i works fine on my old PC running XP so Camcorder, iMac and firewire cable are fine.
Apple keep wanting to troubleshoot but it seems to me that the problem is with Leopard not supporting older camcorders. Canon tell me that Tiger did support the MV3i but they don't know about Leopard.
Does anyone have any ideas?
 
also crashes Mac Pro

I am having the same problem with my camcorders and Leopard.
And I'm reasonably confident it is not the hardware. I have alternated between three different Panasonic camcorders, three different firewire cables, two Macs, iMovie 06 and iMovie 08. Under all possible configurations the camera cannot be imported from.

Added to this the Mac Pro crashed twice when the camcorder was attached to the rear fw400 port, iMovie 08 was running and I selected the 'import' option.

I have been importing from these camcorders for four years without any trouble. The only recent change is the switch to Leopard.

-E
 
applecare investigating

I have emailed Apple in Ireland with the details and am awaiting a repsonse.
I am confident that this is an issue with Leopard not supporting some camcorders...
 
10.5.3 Firewire bug remains

Any news from Apple Ireland?

Updated to 10.5.3 hoping the connection problem might be solved. My DV camcorders remain unrecognised.
 
apple investigating

applecare have said that the problem has been escallated to engineering.
We now wait...
 
Anyone have any luck?

I recently installed iMovie's compatibility update and, maybe coincidence, haven't been able to connect my firewire camera since. Network control panel says firewire is not connected and wants me to type in the dns server.
*shrug*
Any rumours of a fix yet?

Leopard on Intel MacBook
 
This is a bit 'left field' but some cameras aren't recognized if they're in HD mode in older versions of iMovie or FCE or low-end DTV apps. I suspect yours isn't a hi-def camera but if it is it will only work in std. def mode.
 
works on PowerPC

This is a crazy problem :confused:

I've got a Panasonic AG-DVC30 that I tried to connect to an iMac 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo with 10.5.3. The OS can't see the device.

On the other hand, I've also got 2 TiBooks (1GHz & 800MHz) with 10.5.3 & 10.5.4. Both of these are perfectly able to see the camera and can import etc from it.

So my solution has so far been to import the projects on one of the TiBooks and then move the iMovieProject to the iMac for editing afterwards.
 
trevorh said:
New iMac 24, Leopard. I connect a firewire cable from a Sony TRV33 digitial video camera to the firewire 400 port on the iMac, and switch the camera on to VCR so I can get the movie off.... This works fine on windows - it automatically starts up my movie capture /edit software.

On the mac, it does nothing of course.. but even in imovie, FCP, iChat etc, the camera is not seen. I have no other camera or mac to test with, only windows. Any ideas or known probs?

Trevor
Click to expand...

I have the same Sony camera and it import fine under Leopard (all flavors)
 
imac returned

After three months of diagnosis finally gave up. My imac had some problem with the firewire bus or hard drive - no one could be sure.
Wasn't prepared to let them repair something that was faulty from outset.
My camcorder worked fine on three other imacs plus my own if booted from an external hard drive.
Machine therefore rejected and now have a new imac 3.06GHz which recognises and works fine with my MV3i.
I would now recommend anyone buying a mac to get it unpacked in store and check everything you can there, and then go home and test every port and function in the first week!
 
Firewire Problem

Yes, I have seen this. Both my canon zr800 and zr950 failed to be recognized by the mac osx. I have Leepard 10.5.6. When I use my HV30, HDV, no problem. I can use both in imovie and FCP.

I was only able to use the other two non HD cameras on another mac using 10.4, it was not problem. I think it is a driver issue.
 
My DVC-30 also not working.

I have the exact same problem with my imac and my Panasonic DVC-30.
The camera works fine on my tower. The firewire port works with external Hard drives.
Has anyone found a solution for this problem?
My DVD-30 works fine on every other computer and macs except for any new imacs.
Apple does not seem to want to address this problem.
 
Sony HD video to imac solution

Called tech support as I couldn't get my Sony HDR-FX1 HD video to be recognized by Imovie '09. Tech guy had me fix my settings on video camera via menu:

on Sony vid cam: connect video out cable

Go to Menu (near battery on back of camera)
in/out rec, page down to I. LINK CONV, change it to OFF. Hit MENU again to save changes, then play your video when connected to your firewire slot in back of Imac.

Then, your imac/imovie should recognize your video. I'm suppose to thank Jason w/ Apple for this!

Hope this helps.
 
HDR-FX1 to iMac connection problems

df967

What system version were you using.

"I've had problems getting my new 27" quad core iMac OSX 10.6.4 to recognise my Sony HDR-FX1 Camcorder (SN 1410243) --> it does not show up in the System Profiler under Firewire, and it does not show up iMovie or Final Cut Pro.

One thought was that the camera was not compatible with FireWire 800. This seems unlikely and a message to Sony on this matter has yet to be answered.

Hardware (including cable) problems have been ruled out ---> the Camera successfully captures in iMovie 6.0.3 (267.2) under OSX 10.4.11.

Can anyone please verify that this camera is recognised under OSX 10.6.4 or 10.6 at all? Do you have experience of this camera working under this system version ???"
 
Canon HV30 connection to iMac resolved

Prior to owning an HV30 I used a Sony standard Handycam video which I successfully connected to an iMac and downloaded video with the designated 4 pin to 6 pin Firewire cable. More recently I upgraded to the high definition video Canon HV30 and used the same cable but have not been able to download any video with that configuration. I have searched the internet for possible causes and I have read about heaps of possible issues including hardware, software etc until Apple offered me a 'Genius' session (half an hour with their technician) in my hometown Melbourne, Australia. The Belkin cable that the technician used worked perfectly first time. Upon comparison with my cable it was found that my original cable pin is 5.5mm long (the protruding bit that inserted into the Canon HV30) while the Belkin cable which worked properly is 6.5mm - just long enough to make the connection - hard to believe that 1mm made the difference and resolved my frustration. The Sony socket on the camera is obviously shallower in depth than the Canon counterpart. I hope my good discovery helps others to resolve similar problems.

Cheers geepat
 
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