Importing footage from Canon VIXIA HV40?

[Tom Wolsky]

You should use an HDV preset that matches your media. However I’ve heard a lot of reports of Canon users not being able to work with these 800-400 adapter cables. You might want to try googling it.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Jack Rusak]

Same question but with a HV30 and FCP 7.

Just bought a Firewire 400 cable to Firewire 800 cable, but don’t have access to the work station right now. If that cable doesn’t work, does that mean I’m out of luck as far as capturing directly into FCP goes?

[Tom Wolsky]

Depends on the computer. There may other options.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Steve Tanguy]

I had an issue with my hv40 as well. It took me about 10 hours to finally figure it out. It all has to do with the settings. It seems if one is off then Final Cut wont recognize your camera but after getting it all worked out it works like a charm. before you plug the fire wire into your camera turn the camera on and put it in camera mode and set it like you want to record in HDV then turn your camera to play back mode. Again this is with out the firewire plugged into the camera otherwise you cant get into this next setting. With the camera in playback mode go into the menu and go down to the play out setup2 (third one down)
Make sure DV OUTPUT is set to HDV/DV now close the menu. Now plug the fire wire into camera and into your computer. Now launch Final Cut. Go to Easy Setup and change the format to HDV and the Rate to 29.97 Dont worry about the frame rate at this point. The Use box should say Custom Setup. Now click setup. Now go to Audio/Video Settings. Set your Sequence Preset to Apple Intermediate Codec 1080i60.
Set your Capture Preset to HDV. Set your Device Control Preset to HDV FireWire. click OK. try log and capture now. The only thing that may be different is your device control preset since youre using a different fireWire. Give it a shot and let me know.

[Steve Tanguy]

no hv30 will work fine with final cut it’s just gettng the settings right

[Thomas Medina]

Steve,

Thank You!!!! It has been extremely hard and frustrating in trying to find any information about how to do this.

I followed your instructions which made it super easy. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and posting this information.

[Emily Thwaites]

Hi Steve,
Thanks for posting that information. I followed this and have a question. My footage is now in FCP. In the browser columns I notice that the Frame Size is 1440×1080, the Compressor is HDV 1080i60, and the Vid Rate is 29.97.
Why is the Vid Rate 29.97? I shot this footage in 24.

Also what are the pros/cons in bringing this footage in in HDV vs Pro Res HQ?

Thanks!

Emily

[Patricia Snyder]

Steve, I followed your instructions. I just got the camera and thanks to you, was able to import the footage. However, the scale is totally wrong…huge!

Where did I go wrong? Thanks.

[Steve Tanguy]

Hi Emily, the posting I did was to get the hv40 recognized by final cut. Try changing the vid rate in easy setup before capturing and see if that works. I know someone else was asking the same thing. I havent gotten into that situation yet. I hope it works for you. If I find anything else out I’ll post. Thanks
Steve

[Steve Tanguy]

I believe pro res would be way to big of a file and would take up a lot more space and it’s not necessary.