[Roger Van duyn]

Andrew,

I have a DataVideo DN-60 that saves to compact flash like your Firestore does. EACH AND EVERY TIME I change from DV to HDV, I need to reformat the individual card in the recorder for it to work. Otherwise, my DataVideo exhibits similar behavior to your Firestore. Maybe just reformatting the card will work for you.

Sorry for shouting with the all caps, but wanted to make sure you understood that both my units won’t work at all with either my XH-A1 or my XH-A1S when I switch formats unless I use a reformatted card.

Hope this helps.

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

Some music stores have it. I’ve gotten gaff tape at my local Guitar Center.

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

I’m no expert, but a lot of my work is a mixture of 1080i material from HDV cameras and 1080P AVCHD from DSLRs. What seems to work best for me is to make the project 1080i and then convert the finished video to 1080P, usually in Squeeze.

The 1080p material works with AMA, and the HDV fast imports. Not the same as what you are probably dealing with, but changing the project settings to 1080i might be worth a try.

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

If your camera has a bars and tone switch, you can add a couple of seconds of that afterwards to mark a section of notable footage.

The bars and tone markers are quick to find by fast forwarding on the timeline, and I just roll back immediately before the marks to get the promising parts out of those longgggg, borrring, recordings.

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

Hey Rob,

You’re right about the component output! Stephen just needs to make sure he gets a component to HDMI converter, being careful not to mistakenly purchase an HDMI to component converter. The second device is most commonly used by presenters outputting from their laptop to an older projector lacking an HDMI port.

B&H and NewEgg both carry a couple. Battery life might be an issue.

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

Bad memory cards can cause that type of problem. While I don’t own a 7D, I did feel the pain of throwing away a CF card I’d paid nearly $150.00 for about a year ago. While it met the specifications for the device, it was not on the list of approved memory cards provided by the device manufacturer. It always failed after about 50 minutes of recording, on both of my identical recorders.

If I were you, I’d do an online search for approved memory cards for the 7D from Canon itself. IF there is such a list from Canon, I’d recommend only using cards on the approved list. Also, be aware there are counterfeit cards galore. Counterfeit SanDisks, Counterfeit Lexars. Anyone with a good enough printer, and that’s just about anyone nowadays, can print a realistic looking label. The new memory card you bought may be either defective or a counterfeit. Having two bad cards in a row isn’t that unlikely.

Also, firmware upgrades also don’t always “take” properly. It’s always harder to troubleshoot if you only have the one device. If you had a second 7D, you could see if the card worked or not on both, one, or neither. Troubleshooting is always a process of elimination gradually narrowing down the potential causes of the problem.

I hope it’s not the camera. I buy a lot of my gear used. Lucky most of the time, but not always. Some people sell off their used gear when it starts having problems, but don’t tell the buyer about the problems.

Hope this helps.

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

Hi Stephen.

That port is only SD, the same as composite out. You flip the switch to V2 Instructions are on page 99 of the XH-A1 manual (at the bottom of the page).

You might be able to find some type of component adapter for the blade if you want to use HDV output. That being said, HDV is the best output you can obtain from the A1, so I just use a Firewire recorder, the DataVideo DN-60.

Hope this helps.

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

Colors look different because the two devices are designed for two different color spaces. It’s computer display technology vs. television display technology. The DSLR is using the RGB color space and the camcorder is using a 601/709 color space designed for television.

If you look at an image shot in RGB colorspace on a television, the colors appear oversaturated. Too hot.

If you look at an image shot in 601/709 colorspace on an RGB display device (computer monitor), the colors will appear undersaturated. Too drab.

Canon service is correct. The camcorder is designed for television display. The DSLR is designed for displaying photographs on an RGB display. The two devices are designed to display differently. Your editing software should have settings for which colorspace you want your output for.

When I make videos for my clients, I output the videos in both colorspaces. That way, colors are correct if video is viewed online. Colors are correct on the DVD or BluRay for viewing on the television.

Hope this helps.

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

Hi Adam.

As long as the firewire port is undamaged on your camera, you could get a recorder for it. For my Canon XH-A1 and Canon XH-A1S, I purchased a pair of DataVideo DN-60 units, along with several 32GB Sandisk CF cards, a boatload of high quality AA rechargeable batteries, and a commercial grade charger that lets me charge 8 batteries at a time. Total price to upgrade the two cameras to tapeless operation was about half the price of a single XA-20 at the time.

Plus, I still had all the spare batteries for the cameras, wide angle adapter etc. that would have been needed for two new cameras. Plus, I’m very used to my two cameras. Able to do everything by touch. Don’t need to look for settings and buttons anymore. Becoming that proficient with another camera would take a while.

I’ve been using the DN-60s for nearly two years. No problems at all. Not a single lost frame.

Something to consider.

Roger

[Roger Van duyn]

I recently became aware that Avid Pan & Zoom was based on QuickTime until Avid Version 7 because of the shift from 32 bit to 64 bit. Maybe that’s relevant to your problem.

More info is in this thread on Avid’s Customer Forums: https://community.avid.com/forums/t/132270.aspx

Hope this helps.

Roger