fcp, DV, firewire problems, maybe quicktime related?

Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

fcp, DV, firewire problems, maybe quicktime related?

Posted by Jon Leopold on October 23, 2010 at 7:47 pm

Hi all, new to ‘the cow’ as a poster, I’ve checked you guys out many times before though and thank you all for help in the past. I’ve got a quandry though…

I’m not sure if this is a FCP issue exclusively but here’s the problem am not sure where else to turn…

1. FCP v 4.5 not responding sometimes when I try to log and capture, occasionally on startup. I’ve tried 3 different cameras (canon xL 2, a JVC mini dv (consumer – don’t have model # on me) and a panasonic PV-GS59, on all cameras I can communicate with them (VTR- OK) and can rewind and play etc… I can see on the camera that it’s working but – ‘NO preview Available’ in FCP window. Once I had a preview available for the JVC model but not the next time – I didn’t change settings in-between. In a nut shell that is the problem. Note: I also have tried importing on iMovie on this system and am unable to see the preview on -screen but it does control the camera, just like in FCP.

System info:
1.8 GHz PowerPC G5 2GB DDR SDRAM running 10.4.11 and Quicktime version 7.64 pro.

The footage was shot on the XL2 in 24p advanced 2.3.3.2 in 16:9
I set FCP to easy setup ntsc 24p advance pulldown

From the research I’ve done so far I have tried dumping preference files and repairing disk permissions, I just recently had noticed some people talking about problems with quicktime… Any thoughts ? This is pretty much rendering this G5 mostly useless for me, I’ve got a newer intel based macpro but no license for FCP to run on it… It would suck to lose FCP…

Thanks in advance for any help….

Thanks very much… High School Media Teacher, multiple Macs (tiger and snow leopard- mac pros, imacs, emacs) and PCs

Jon Leopold replied 15 years, 6 months ago 2 Members · 10 Replies
10 Replies

Jerry Hofmann
October 24, 2010 at 11:46 am

Try resetting the PMU button on the motherboard. Search “Power Management Unit” on Apple’s Support site for the instructions. It’s easy to do…

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

DVD:https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays
Jon Leopold
October 24, 2010 at 6:22 pm

Thanks Jerry for the quick response and suggestion… I’m going to give it a try. I’ll let you know how it works out…

Thanks very much… High School Media Teacher, multiple Macs (tiger and snow leopard- mac pros, imacs, emacs) and PCs
Jon Leopold
October 24, 2010 at 8:46 pm

Jerry I gave it a shot but
1. couldn’t find the button.
2. I deduced that my mac was one without the button and that to reset it you were supposed to turn it off unplug the power pull the cables out leave it for 2 min. and plug it back in. I’ve tried this twice but to no avail that I can tell. The date was not reset so I don’t know if it was actually done properly but I’m pretty sure I did it right. I tried it another time holding the power button ( instructions from earlier G3’s etc..) that didn’t work either. I tried re attaching my camera and starting fcp and the message that it couldn’t find the deck came up again. I changed the firewire mode from ntsc basic to ntsc dv etc… in easy setup but it still kept popping up the … ‘c an’t find the deck’ message.

I’m wondering if there’s something wrong with the firewire ports themselves or the bus? inside where they attach. I’m going to contact the IT guy and see if he can check out the ports. It usually takes a while etc… so I try to solve this stuff myself first but I’m hesitant to muck about with it too much as it’s the school’s computer. Thanks for the info. If you’ve got any other suggestions I’ll take it… otherwise I’ll get back to you with IT guys solution (if there is one).

Thanks again.

Thanks very much… High School Media Teacher, multiple Macs (tiger and snow leopard- mac pros, imacs, emacs) and PCs
Jerry Hofmann
October 24, 2010 at 11:21 pm

What is the exact model of the Mac? There is a procedure for the PMU or later macs had another way to reset the power management… Did you find an article on the procedure? If so post it. This procedure will reset the power management to the FW bus, which I’ve seen fix the condition you describe.

Tried a different cable?

Here’s a link I found for the PMU button – has a picture of where it is. https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1939

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

DVD:https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays
Jon Leopold
October 25, 2010 at 12:35 am

Hi again Jerry, I checked out the site you posted earlier and kept staring into the side of the machine trying to figure out where it is and I couldn’t figure out why it didn’t look like those images. Then discovered
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1305?viewlocale=en_US

Mine looks like the bottom image from the above link… (late 2004)

Then I found how to reset pmu on that from this link:
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1436

But if it worked I can’t tell a difference. The clock didn’t reset but it only says ‘some models’ clocks will reset… Not sure….

FcP does seem to work otherwise, I can import video which I’ve since tried doing (video I already had .m4v files etc…).

Thanks very much… High School Media Teacher, multiple Macs (tiger and snow leopard- mac pros, imacs, emacs) and PCs
Jerry Hofmann
October 25, 2010 at 11:39 am

Bummer…

You’ve tried a different firewire cable, and you’re not connecting the firewire cable through a drive – it’s connected directly to the mac, right?

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

DVD:https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays
Jon Leopold
October 25, 2010 at 4:22 pm

Ya, I’ve tried different wires, I’ve tried the same cameras on other computers… an intel G5 and a new imac and they work fine (but I don’t have fcp on those – bummer…) If I need to I guess I could import them on a different machine (but can’t do the pulldown from 24p … or can I ? )

But ultimately I’m thinking there’s something wrong with the other machine. The IT guy said he could come by next week, we’ll see how that goes…

Thanks very much… High School Media Teacher, multiple Macs (tiger and snow leopard- mac pros, imacs, emacs) and PCs
Jon Leopold
October 25, 2010 at 4:28 pm

Edit… add to last post sry… The firewire is going straight into the mac. I tried the port on the front and back… Only one I didn’t try was the firewire 800 port (don’t have a cable). Wondering if that works though….

Thanks very much… High School Media Teacher, multiple Macs (tiger and snow leopard- mac pros, imacs, emacs) and PCs
Jerry Hofmann
October 25, 2010 at 5:21 pm

It sounds like a bad FW bus on the machine that won’t work… the cable works on other machines, and the camera does too… leaves the FW bus on the errant machine then. It’s likely not a software problem, if the settings are correct for the source material…

You can remove advanced pulldown during capture, or you can do it afterwards too, so you could capture on any working machine and move the media to the errant one and work.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

DVD:https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays
Jon Leopold
November 3, 2010 at 6:57 pm

Hi Jerry thanks again for your reply. I’m working on getting the bus checked out. In the meantime… The only other method I know if that I have to capture video is in iMovie 09. I was under the impression that will eliminate the pulldown possibility later. True ?

Also another question for you (should belong in another forum i guess and will post there but thought you may see it here). If I get new copy of FCPro Studio to run on an iMac 2.26 core 2 duo with 2 GB ram, Geforce 9400 256mb. Will it run ‘well’ I know it meets minimum requirements but would it run well or are the min specs just saying the system will run the program, but you wouldn’t want to have to do anything with it after that ???

Thanks very much… High School Media Teacher, multiple Macs (tiger and snow leopard- mac pros, imacs, emacs) and PCs

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