Any problems I should expect
 

So I finaly made up my mind, I'm going to be buying an xh-A1. I'd like to know if there are any common problems I should be on the look out for? I know that on the xl's there were known to blow fuses and I know theres something up with the firmware on the A1 but I dont completly understand the problem any clearification would be extremly helpful thank you agian

Well from scanning through the forums, it would appear that you have a 50/50 chance of Final Cut Pro (if the is the software you use) recognizing your camera for footage capture. Just a heads up.


Ok so for the past few days I haven't been able to have FCP recognize my camera. However, tonight it just worked. If I pin down a progression that works every time, I'll be sure to post it up.

I had trouble with FCP recognizing the camera, but it was, as in most all cases, operator error. You get all the settings right and you shouldn't have any problem. There are lots of variables in FCP. And sometimes it depends on the computer itself. With the G5 editing computer, I plug in the camera before turning on the computer. On my laptop it wants to be plugged in after the computer is on. Go figger. I never turn on the camera before pluggin in the firewire cable.

yeah i am going to be using final cut
 

Wow that sounds bad I dont want to spend all this money on a camera with chances of it not connecting with my editing software there has to be a way to avoid this right ???????? I'm also buying a mac pro and I thought for sure they would be a great fit

It's not bad. It works great. You just have to pay attention and do things right. FCP is really picky and you have to set it up properly. If you're totally new to FCP and to the camera, you probably will have some newbie trials and tribulations. I edited with Avid for about 10 years, and when we switched to FCP I couldn't get to first base with it until I bought a training program. It took me about 3 days to get through the training, and then life was good. FCP is not like Avid--you don't just turn it on and expect everything to work properly. That's because it is much more flexible, and you have to be willing to invest the time to learn it. If you do, you'll be a happy camper; if you don't, you'll have problems.

everybody on this forum is so friendly and incredibly helpful thank you all so much really thank you

My experience here is that it didn't work great, even when set up properly, until I powered down my MOTU 828MII firewire audio interface.

The problem here could be a Final Cut Pro problem, a computer problem, a Canon A1 problem (same behaviour on two cameras), or a MOTU driver problem.

But capturing and camera communication works just fine on my Panasonic DVX100 on the same system, with the MOTU running, so I suspect a firewire problem with the XH A1 and have reported it to Canon.

Cheers,
-Jamie
www.JamieKrutz.com

same. I have some capture issues. and they aren't operator error. I've been using fcp for 5 years and fcp with hdv for over a year. Capture now works fine, but somethings funky with the timecode here... (scratches pretend goatee while pondering deep thoughts)