beyond bizarre - 2 fried fw circuits?
 

I have been trying all day to get fcp to capture footage from one of my hd100s, and I have had no luck. I tried basically everything and then I realized that maybe the firewire was fried on my mac or even my hd100. So I plugged in another camcorder I had laying around and fcp had no problems recognizing it so I knew it wasn't my mac or fcp.

So I realized that maybe my hd100's firewire port was fried. Luckily, I have 2 hd100s so I turned off my mac, pluged in my secondary hd100(power off). Turned my mac on and then turned the hd100 on, opened fcp and it still did not recognize it.

So I did that whole process over again but using a brand new fw cable. Still fcp did not see it. It was just crazy.

I thought maybe fcp was having one of its weekly moments(where it does something crazy) so I tried using ppro2.0 instead. Ppro2.0 had the same problem, and with both hd100s. I just captured to ppro2.0 last week with not even a hiccup.

What is even crazier is that I have never hot swapped before, EVER. I read the firewire sticky long before I bought the hd100s. I capture footage(on fcp) about once a week and this problem has never came up. I am pretty use to the whole "turn everything off before plugging in" deal. In fact, the first hd100 has not been unplugged since the last time I captured footage from it, which was yesterday.

Oh and the hdv/dv switch, it has always been set to hdv since I already have a dedicated dv deck.

I have warranties on both my hd100s but I find it insane that both hd100s would have the same problem.

I am thinking something else is going on but in the last 6 hours of research and tinkering, I can not come up with any other ideas.

I was wondering if any of you could relate to this problem or maybe point me to a solution.

Try plugging the cameras into each other -- can you play footage on one and see it on the other? If so your ports are fine and something else is the problem.

It does seem unlikely that you would blow both ports.

Incredible, that test actually worked. I was able to play footage from one hd100 to the other with no problems at all. I tried capturing again on both fcp and ppro2.0 and the same problems would occur.

That was an awesome idea. Now I am really stumped. I am not sure how the whole system works but from connecting the hd100s to both ppro2.0 and fcp, it looks like a device control problem.

In ppro2.0, the capture dialog would change it's status from like "no device online" to something like "can not activate device..." when I switched the hd100 on and off. I know the firwire is sending out something and computer is reading it.

Fcp said I could capture using "capture now" since it could not gain control of the deck but I tried that and it did not capture.

I am now looking into the settings menu of the hd100s and see if I can find the problem there.

I have to get these things back online pretty soon because I have about 2 HD projects that have to be done by next week.

I tried searching the menus but found nothing. I tried re installing fcp, and still no luck.

There is a problem somewhere, I just have to find it. I captured some footage eariler from an fx1 with no problems at all.

It's almost like these things are cursed!

It has to be linked to the hd100s, because they will not capture at all in both fcp and ppro2.0.

Jonathan,

FCP has two firewire modes - DV and HDV. If a normal DV camcorder is being recognized, then FCP is not currently setup to capture HDV. It will only recognize one or the other.

In Audio/Video settings the Capture Preset and Device Control Preset must both be set to HDV. You can manually select the appropriate presets yourself, or use "Easy Setup" to set them all automatically.

The other thing is that if you are attempting to capture 720P24 or 720P25 footage you must have updated to FCP v5.1.2.

I'm not sure why it wasn't working on PP2. Is it possible that you don't have the camera in VTR mode?

I know about the fcp capture presets and they were properly set to 720p24 and I have upgraded to v5.1.2.

Yeah I had the camera in VTR mode and everything of coarse.

lol, it is so weird. There is definitely something wrong.

If I can't get this to work by tomorrow then I am going to order a BR-HD50. I will know then if the problem stems from the hd100s.

Thanks for the tips. I have been having one of those days where everything wants to be difficult.

recognition of HD100
 

I had the same problem. Drove me crazy because final cut recognized every other firewire deck camera etc. Here's what my problem was. I had to disconect my external lacie drive. I can only assume it was a firewire conflict. once the lacie was disconnected the HD100 was recognized no problem. I would suggest disconnecting all firewires except the HD100 and see what happens.
Hope this helps.

Evan

I have had customers with the same issue, and, like you, it was conflicts with the external drives. So, disconnect all external drives and other firewire devices except the camera, then try again.

Hi Jonathan,
do you have a third party firewire controller installed that the GY-HD100 is hooked up to?
we've seen some systems built with no extra firewire controllers where we run into difficulties.
Terry

No, the hd100 is hooked up to the stock fw of the mac pro. I have not tried a third party controller yet.

It appears to be a %100 hd100 problem. I got the jvc deck, and the problem does not exist with this deck. I am getting around to calling my jvc rep to get the fw replaced. I am not sure what fried them if they are in fact fried.

I am getting a mac book pro any day now so I will do one more test with that and see what happens before sending them out.

Thanks guys for the tips. I really do not how I could have prevented this problem since I never hot swap or hit that hd/sd switch. I am sure something occurred, maybe a lighting strike?? I have no clue.

What is odd, is that I can shoot footage from one hd100 to other like the test that Berry mentioned. Odd, but I am not too worried about it now that I have the deck, I was freaking out before, lol.

Now that you have the deck I guess you could try each camera to the deck-- see if anything reveals itself.

Best.