Firewire/ Firestore Burnout???

[Joseph Olesh]

I have recently rented my HVX to a local studio. They called this morning explaining they had broken the camera... saying there was a problem leaving firewire in and burning out an internal component???

My phone was breaking up and I had trouble getting the entire story. However, I would like to get as much information before I meet back with them.

Is it worth the repair, or will it equate to the cost of a new camera? I know this is a vague description, but I have heard of this sort of thing before. Any suggestions will help.

Thanks.

[John Miller]

Well, if they broke it, aren't they responsible to return it to you in the condition it was beforehand? i.e., shouldn't they pay for the repairs? Is there anything in writing to that effect?

[Joseph Olesh]

absolutley. i have worked with this studio for some time and i have no worries with regards to the repair/replacement.

I was just checking to see if anyone had a similar situation with regard to the firestore.

[Robert Lane]

The information is sketchy at best and since the exact problem isn't known, it's impossible to say if an external device could have caused the problem.

As a general rule, simply leaving a FW device connected to the camera isn't going to cause damage however, if the external device itself was malfunctioning and somehow sent a power spike through the FW cable then yes, some damage would be caused to the connected camera.

But as I say, there's not enough information to be of any real help.

There have been other similarly sketchy reports of FW devices causing camera issues (I remember seeing another story like this about an F350 being "burned" by a FW device), but nothing confirmed and neither myself nor any of my clients have ever reported such troubles.