Canon HF-10 - FCP Import What am I doing wrong?

[Reed Gidez]

The files transfer OK with the original drive and OS (Leopard, updated) so the bug rests within both my iMac and Mac Pro. Disappointing.

Now need to find out if I can isolate the problem program or files and remove them without having to back everything up and zero the drive.

rg

[Larry Horwitz]

Reed,

Are you saying that 2 different installs of FCP both have the same display issue? If I understand your last post correctly, you would need to "zero" the drive on both the MacPro and iMac to fix it on both machines.

This is pretty incredible...

Larry

[Reed Gidez]

Hey Larry

When I bought my new Mac Pro this past spring, I immediately replaced the 320GB drive with a 750GB and installed my apps on that drive, keeping the stock drive on a shelf 'just in case".

After unsuccessful attempts to correct the transfer problem, I reinstalled FCP on the current system drive to no avail. To rule out any hardware issues with the Mac Pro, I removed the working system drive and put in the original drive (without FCP - pretty much factory standard) updated the OS and then plugged in the HF10. Files transferred and played perfectly. This tells me there is a problem with a corrupt or outdated file on my main system drive. Apple says the only way to fix it is to Zero the drive. I don't want to have to do that if possible.

What I am now looking for is a way to possibly ID the errant files or program and remove and replace. I suspect this is not going to be possible so I will have to back up my data, clear the drive, and reinstall everything.

I will call Apple once more and see if I can a more knowledgeable tech.

That's where we stand at the moment. This is not a 'mission critical' problem now and I can continue the two projects I am working on. Just an annoyance because now that I have bought the camera, I want to be able to integrate it into my projects. Size alone makes it a great POV cam.

Reed

[Larry Horwitz]

Reed,

Sorry to hear of the grief you are having. I still am puzzled at the coincidence (?) of two machines becoming corrupted in the same manner. Your iMac apparently suffers from the same issue, and it is nearly incredible to me that this would occur except if there is some software bug, in which case I would expect most if not all other users to see the same issue as you do.

Like many things Apple-related, cause and effect are not neccesarily obvious. And Apple certainly does not expose a lot of details which would allow users and 3rd parties to provide a lot of repair or diagnostic tools for these types of problems.

As a purely defensive strategy, I did precisely what you did with each of my MacPros, namely, remove the factory disk, and then install a larger (in my case 500 GB) drive along with a couple more 500 GB drives as well, as soon as the machine was unboxed and initialized with my user account.

After installing FCP and other apps and confirming that they are working, I then immediately ran SuperDuper (a superb product) and also Carbon Copy Cloner to image the disks and make backups. More than once I had to resort to using them to do restores, particularly after Parallels, Bootcamp, and a lot of other early release software screwed things up.

I had a lot of problems with my first MacPro, ultimately resulting in Apple allowing me a trade-in for an 8 core machine. The MacPro would suddenly, without warning, totally shut down, often in the middle of long rendering sessions when the fans were going full speed. After 3 back-breaking trips to the Apple Store and unsuccessful attempts to fix it, followed by escalation by my son (an attorney) who made some legitimate legal threats, Apple admitted to a problem and gave me nearly full value in a trade. The newer 8 core was very stable, but the rendering speed was way too long for me to suffer. And any comparisons I made to my better PC software such as Vegas convinvced me that Apple was not the way to go. This is / was especially true for BlueRay, AVCHD, and other advanced / recent stuff, which Apple has not embraced and has, in Steve Job's case personally, dismissed.

Sorry for the long winded reply. One would presume that a reinstall of FCP and Quick Time with the subsequent updates applied should restore your environment, but obviously such is not the case. I hope the "Zero" process works!!

Larry