[Craig Alan]

Depends if your camcorders shoot in 16:9 native. If so, use 16:9, if not…

[Craig Alan]

Hi Jerry,

That is what I suspect. The firewire drive I am trying to use is a Hitachi in a Weibetech 800 enclosure. I have used it successfully at home on my G4 with a Weibetech 800 card added which gives me a separate bus. I have used it successfully on the G5 but most of the time that I hook it up and try to import using a cam on the other port, I have problems getting any type of device control. The video will play on the camera but will not play on the editor/viewer. If I unplug the firewire drive, all is well. Maybe turning things on in the right order will help.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Jerry,

The firewire cable is good because it works on the other computers fine. I’ve tried several different cams as decks and a dsr-11. So that’s not the variable.

I’m kind of in a bind here. I ordered all new software but the package got misplaced somewhere in the delivery chain at school. The old discs are missing. I only have one internal drive (a second drive too was with the missing order) and the G5 only has one firewire card (I think) even though it has a 400 port in front and an 800 port in back. It won’t allow me to capture with both ports occupied. So what I have been doing is capturing to the start up drive and then copying the project to the external firewire drive and deleting the copy on the internal drive. I’m sure this is not as clean as it should be but for the time being it’s all I can think of.

So, your guess is it’s a software problem?

Could the firmware for the firewire card have gotten corrupted? I think I can download that. I can also download and re-install an OS update if that would help.

Thanks again

[Craig Alan]

Hey Tom,

I have a dual 2.5 gig G5 that has a 400 fw port in front and an 800 port in back and have had intermittent problems capturing using an external 800 fw drive connected in back and a camcorder or deck connected in front. I wondered if they were sharing the same bus. Are you sure this is the case? Either way, adding a new card makes sense, but I’m curious if this is the cause of the capture problems that creep up once in a while.

[Craig Alan]

thanks

[Craig Alan]

Thanks, I thought as much on the firewire hotplug issue. What about the 30 foot cable? Is there a size limit?

[Craig Alan]

Make sure your camera is set to export footage as HDV. Check in the cam’s menus.Sony lets you choose between dv and hdv.

[Craig Alan]

I have the same need with mixed results through experimenting. You can certainly prevent students from installing or deleting any apps. Just look over the accounts dialog box. The Internet is tricky though. You can prevent them from launching any browser directly, but many programs have built in access to the net. Students learn the work around. If you did add individual accounts, however, you could easily determine what that student did

[Craig Alan]

I’m going through problems like this. Try shutting down the Mac. Unplugging everything including the Mac power cord. Wait a few minutes. Boot back up. Apple suggested this as a kind of reset of the firewire connection. It works for me, though I have to repeat this procedure too often for my liking. If it turns out it is the canon and not the firewire connection, then you could use another camcorder to capture/export with. Any cheap one will do. Why wear the heads on an xl1?

[Craig Alan]

I’m going through problems like this. Try shutting down the Mac. Unplugging everything including the Mac power cord. Wait a few minutes. Boot back up. Apple suggested this as a kind of reset of the firewire connection. It works for me, though I have to repeat this procedure too often for my liking. I notice that I loose the ability to capture after rewinding my tape to the beginning using device control. I might try rewinding before connecting the firewire cable. If it turns out it is the canon and not the firewire connection, then you could use another camcorder to capture with. Any cheap one will do. Why wear the heads on an xl2?