• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  “Unable to initialize” HDV until DVCAM paves way

  Posted by Bob Cole on August 15, 2007 at 2:36 am

  I loaded an HDV tape into my newish Sony M25, with component video into a Kona LHe card, and iLink/Firewire directly into the MacPro. FCP Capture reported it was unable to initialize the video deck.

  Swapped Firewire cable, same thing.

  Loaded DVCAM tape into M25, without touching the wiring. (Had to manually roll tape just to get Kona card to recognize that I’d switched to NTSC 525 29.97). FCP Capture recognized and controlled the deck. I then loaded HDV tape into M25. (Had to roll tape manually to get Kona card to recognize 1080i 29.97.) FCP recognized and controlled the deck. Video was captured in both Kona LH 1080i 29.97 8-bit and Kona DVCProHD. I used Firewire NTSC for device control. (The audio has lots of little blips, perhaps due to having relatively little room=130Gb left on SATA RAID.)

  When I exit capture and then return to capture, FCP AGAIN says it can’t initialize the video device (M25).

  So DVCAM paves the way… but the way won’t stay paved. I don’t want to have to load a DVCAM tape every time I want to capture some HDV with Firewire control/timecode information.

  At some point during my evening of frustration, FCP just up and quit.

  I tried trashing preferences, lots of FCP restarts. Didn’t do anything more extreme.

  Any advice would be most welcome.

  Bob C

  Bob Cole replied 19 years ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Walter Biscardi

  August 15, 2007 at 3:46 am

  [Bob Cole] “So DVCAM paves the way… but the way won’t stay paved. I don’t want to have to load a DVCAM tape every time I want to capture some HDV with Firewire control/timecode information.”

  If I understand you correctly, you’re trying to capture the HDV material into another format through the Kona?

  If so, you MUST set up the Firewire to downconvert to DV. You cannot control the deck via Firewire unless you are using an HDV easy setup. If you are trying to simply control the deck via Firewire while capturing via the Kona, you cannot have the deck in HDV mode via firewire.

  Walter Biscardi, Jr.
  https://www.biscardicreative.com
  HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

  All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

  Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi
• 

  Bob Cole

  August 15, 2007 at 10:28 am

  Thanks Walter! I’ll try that as soon as today’s shoot is over.

  How in the world do you ever know stuff like that?

  bob

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