Final Cut capture problems with XL-h1a
 

I've had this camera for 7 months now and have not needed to capture any footage thus far as most of my work is handed off to others after a shoot.

Today I've spent hours searching for an answer as to why Final Cut will not initialize the camera as a capture device when in HDV mode. I read through a thread that had members suggesting that I shut down FCP (version 6.0.5 by the way) and have the camera turned on when I restarted the program. That hasn't helped.

My Audio/Video settings have been changed to just about every combination I can think of and still FCP will not recognize the camera as a deck. My current settings are as follows:
Sequence Preset: HDV - 1080i60 (Footage was shot with this setting)
Capture Preset: HDV
Device Control Preset: HDV Firewire Basic
My camera is connected via firewire to the front of the Mac G5.

I'm dying here! Any ideas as to what the problem may be? Thanks.

Tyge,
even if your Audio/Video settings are correct set-up, I've found that I have to run the Easy Setup every time I want to capture from HDV.

So my procedyre is as follow:

In Final Cut Pro-menu, choose Easy Setup. Set Format to: HDV, in the USE-window choose HDV-1080i60 Firewire Basic, then click Setup

Then from File-meny, choose Log and Capture. Final Cut should now recognise the camcorder and be ready to capture.

I have the same FCP version as you, on a Mac Pro 2x3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon.

Hope this helps?

I just tried that and it didn't work. When I click setup FCP throws a popup that reads it can't locate the firewire device.

Thanks so much for your insight. Still searching for an answer to this problem.

I did capture some footage in another project set to DV NTSC. The footage is SD I suppose and 853x480 instead of 1440x1080. So, I know my firewire port is not burned and is working.

I wonder if there's a setting on the camera that I may have set that could be causing the HDV capture problem?

I have the "old" model of Canon H1 and this is what the manual says:

If your tape consist of HDV 1080i60, ensure that in the Signal setup menu on your camcorder, says Playback STD set to HDV.
Important: make sure that HD Down-Conv is set to OFF!

Mr. Per Johan Naesje, you sir are a genius! That was it. I had to change both of the menu options. As soon as I did I successfully captured my first HDV clip from this camera. Thanks so much for your help.

I've been having this same problem... Found this post and thought my problem was solved, but I can't change the "Playback STD" setting while Firewire is in. When I pull the Firewire out, I can set these settings, but when I plug the cord back in, they grey out and can't be selected. I don't get it. This is very frustrating.

Am I supposed to be using a different kind of Firewire cord than I used with SD cameras? I can import into iMovie HD without issue, but I shot at 24f and iMovie doesn't import at the correct frame rate.

Anybody have other suggestions? Thanks.

Corey, if I understand you correctly: you're supposed to set appropriate settings in the camcorder menu BEFORE you plug in the firewire. When set correctly, they will hold their values even when you connect the firewire cord!