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Latest imacs and Firewire with Final Cut Pro
I have Final Cut Studio 2 on my brand new 27″ imac and my macbook pro. I have a Sony HVR-A1u and HVR-Z1u. Both work perfectly in FCP Studio 2 and digitize fine with HDV firewire settings on my macbook. However, my new imac has no firewire 400 in. Wow, Steve!! Anyway, It’s firewire 800 on the back.
I bought the Apple certified cable from the apple store to go from a firewire 400 mini to the port of the firewire 800 on the back of the imac. FCP does not see this camera or any camera. The port works with a firewire 800 drive, so the port is fine. The settings are precisely the same as my laptop that digitize from these two cameras. Again, everything works with my sony cameras on the macbook pro with the same software and same settings, but the macbook pro is firewire 400 (by the grace of God I can still digitize).
I am simply unable to digitize into FCP with my firewire 400 to firewire 800 cable from apple. I also bought a converter adapter, but that didn’t work either. Basically, I’m sitting here with a brand new 2K mac that can’t digitize video and has the same settings and hardware as my macbook pro. Wow!!
Anyone else have this problem, and if so, can you help? I have a feeling a hub will be a waste of time, and going through a workaround by plugging in this firewire 400 to 800 through a firewire 800 drive into the imac doesn’t work either.
Enough to make you scream. Man!
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4 Replies
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Hi
Try:-
Get the camcorder powered up in playback mode (set as it is when it works with the MBP).
Attach it to the powered-down iMac, then power up the iMac, open FCP and try again. -
Alas, turned off the machine, plugged in the Apple certified cable, Turned the Sony HDV A1u on in playback mode, booted it up, got FCP up, went to tape logging and…no results. Stuck.
It’s got to be an Apple imac problem. I’m sure it is. Why didn’t they put a firewire 400 port on this machine?
Do you think if I buy a firewire hub that goes to USB in the back, or firewire 800 that it will work then?
Anyone have ANY suggestions.
The Sony A1u is 2K. The imac is brand new. The cable is from apple. Final Cut Studio 2.
It doesn’t add up? I’ve been doing this for 20 years -8 with Final Cut, and this is literally the only time I’ve never gotten something to work.
Ugh!
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Have you tired capturing directly to an external drive?
We recently bought an iMac and had assumed that going forward my capturing would have to be done with our MBP (which has an express card slot) – then I would copy my project file to the iMac. Instead, out of curiosity, I tried capturing directly to the daisy-chained HD and was pleasantly surprised that I encountered no problems. This, however, was with DV footage, so perhaps it wouldn’t work as well with HDV.
Russ
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Yes. I did daisy chain it through my lacie 1TB firewire 800 drive. Dead duck. No use. I have no leads on how to do this.
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