Well well. When I first saw the Sony Z1 demo, I asked the SOny rep if they might bring out a machine based on the DSR 1500 with HD SDI out just like this machine. He said ‘don’t hold you breath’. Two years to late for me.
Getting back to the original post, I used to have an adaptor box that went between the Mac and any other firewire device that was designed to buffer power spikes that fried chips either in the Mac or the camera. It was firewire thru. I lent it to a friend after he fried his Mac firewrie connecting to a DSR 11 deck.