[Paul Richard]

Equipped with a new Sony HDR-SR12 Handycam and a MacBook Pro 17″ Intel Core 2 Duo machine I attempted to transfer the MPEG2 footage via USB. Why Sony did not include FireWire support for this $1,300.00 camcorder is probably due to the Sony engineer’s complacency and the bean counters’ unchecked power.

Running Final Cut Pro 5.1.4 there is no way to do it. I had to resort to pulling the two MPEG files from the camera’s hard drive to the Mac’s desktop. Two files because the hard disc recorder has a limit of 1.99 gigabytes per file of course. Using MPEG Streamclip I converted the video files to DV for easy importing into Final Cut Pro.
Even if I had Final Cut 6, I believe I would have had to do the same thing, for you see the geniuses at Apple and Sony will only allow for the transfer of high definition footage from camera to computer, not standard definition. Whatever they can do to inconvenience the consumer they will spend a good portion of R&D on assuring just such an accomplishment. I thought I had figured out a suitable work-around but MPEG Streamclip chopped a second or so off of the end of each clip. Why? Becuase it is free. The footage played perfectly through the camera, however. I had to recover the second or two of footage that I lost so it was back to figuring out how to capture. Tried Final Cut 4 Express. No go. The footage is not HD. Tried iLife ’08 and iMovie 7. Not a chance for the same reason. Where was that time tested and superior FireWire interface when I needed it? There it was on my new Sony GV-D200 Digital 8 recorder. Could have also used my $3,000.00 Sony DSR-25 or my $400.00 Formac DV Studio converter. Plugged the $1,300.00 camera into the $600.00 record deck then FireWire into the $2,400.00 computer with $1,500.00 dollars worth of video editing software in it. Changed the capture setting to a non-controllable device and made sure there was no other applications running that could affect the computer’s hard drive performance. I concluded that this was real money but real money well spent. It surely was a wise investment, it had to be you see, because I got it to actually work. Even the audio quality is better through FireWire; levels are more properly represented as well. Don’t know why.

So to recap:

Latest and greatest Sony Handycam: $1,300.00
MacBook Pro 17″ Intel Core 2 computer: $2,400.00
antiquated video recording device just to get FireWire $600.00
video editing software that won’t do what I need it to do: $1,500.00
All the hassle I had to go through to do something so simple: Pricey