If you're having problems with FCP not recogniziing your camera over firewire and have recently upgraded to Tiger and/or Quicktime 7 then see the following tech note on Apple's site. Hopefully it will solve your problem:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301852

I had this problem with my XM2 (but not my Panasonic NV-DA1). It was iffy, would sometimes see it, other times not, sometimes control the camera, sometimes not. After a lot of searching, I found that capturing direct to my external LaCie 320G with a FW800 link was the problem.

I now capture direct to the internal hard drive, and drop over afterwards. I've had no problems since.

Cheers.

The FW 800 issue was discussed in this thread recently:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=49843

If your machine supports it, add either a firewire PCI card (G4 and G5 towers) or a firewire carbus card (powerbooks). That would give you a second independent firewire bus and should avoid these issues. The cards are not expensive (I paid $30 at Best Buy for my Powerbook FW400 PC card).

Unfortunately, if you have an iBook, iMac or Mini you're stuck with the single internal firewire port. From what I've read, even though Macs have more than one firewire outlet, internally they share the same bus (including FW400 and FW800).

In addition to helping with camera/capture problems, having two separate busses speeds up copies between two firewire drives.

I'll look into that... it's much more convenient for me to keep video on the big drive.

My machine (a G4 mirror door) has two FW400 outlets and one FW800. I have the disc plugged into the FW800 and the camera to a FW400. The other slot is free. Would adding a card still help?

I have no way to verify this, but like I said I've read in several places that all Macs only have one firewire bus. So it doesn't matter which outlet you plug into - 400 or 800 - they are feed into the same bottleneck. I suspect the only way you'll know for sure will be to buy a PCI card. I think the FW400 cards are pretty cheap but I've never shopped for one before.

Boyd,

I already have Mac OS X with quicktime 7pro. But still i'm not able to connect to my Sony NTSC camcorder. I guess it would be the same with DVX100a. But iMovie HD detects the camera and downloads the media.

FCP5 gives the error Unable to locat the following external devices
Apple Firewire NTSC (720x480).

Any idea.
Hari

I have the same thing with my XL2. I've done wat apple told me with that link of taking out the receipts and then reinstalling Quicktime 7. I still can't get FCP to see my XL2, can't even control it.

Mike,

Run the software updates without fail on a daily basis. Once i ran the software updates on FCP the problem got fixed. Apparently its a bug.

regards,
Hari

Run the software updates without fail on a daily basis.

Interesting. Let us know if this fixes your problem Mike.

Only one caveat here.... I'd suggest disabling automatic software updates. Do it manually and be a little bit careful, especially if you're using old versions of applications. In the past I've seen people get burned by things like new versions of Quicktime which aren't compatible with old versions of FCP.

Yeah. Both the products are owned by Apple and i don't know why they are not providing backward compatibility. I guess its all about money.

Still not working guys...i'm goin to continue to try other ways. Will have to reinstall 10.4. Thanks for the help guys.

Mike, Sorry to hear about that man. I know how you feel it sucks. Reinstallation is the last option.

Let us know,
thanks,
Hari

I pulled hair out trying to edit to tape and then a simple print to video via FCP 5.04. BTW: OSX 10.4.4 QT 7.04 Pro. I tried various cameras and decks. Control and DV into the computer worked. DV out to deck didn't. I had a DEADLINE. Apple's advice of deleting QT numbered recepits- No Good. Finally, I dl'd the uninstall QT 7.04 re-install 7.01. Worked, thank grid. Upping to 7.03 DID NOT. So for use of this particular function, I have to be running 7.01. Otherwise, 7.04 works beautifully for me. I'll be an early downloader of 7.05, and hope they are acting on the clamor that they are hearing. This sort of thing makes me feel like I'm trying to make things work on a Wintel machine. I hope they are more together on mactel machines by the time i have one.

BTW: Not being a mystical wizard of UNIX, I followed the advice of runnung permissions repair in disk utility twice after restart from install. What's it hurt?

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/

I pulled hair out trying to edit to tape and then a simple print to video via FCP 5.04.

I got frustrated with dropped frames when printing to video, and finally narrowed the problem down to my internal SATA media drive having been formatted with journaling enabled (which is the default). Suggest that you turn journaling off when you format any media storage drives, it seems to slow them down enough to cause problems.

If I buy Quiktime Pro will it make a difference? I just upraded from FCE to FCE HD and to do that I had to upgrade to the latest OSX (which was quite costly and I am wondering if it was worth it).

I had a guy who was going to pay me 150 bucks to edit a bachelor party film for him and couldn't do it because FCE HD couldn't locate any external capture device. (Oddly enough, imovie HD could although it took too long to letterbox each clip which it did automatically).

I tried the trick from the first link but I didn't have any Quicktime reciepts. I have already spent alot of money just to upgrade my editing to HD so i am not about to spend anymore unless I know that this works.

For the record, my internal dvd burner/player stopped working 1 year and 1 day after purchase, and I couldn't install the new OSX nor the FCE HD through my external DVD player and therefore had to do it through a friends mac via firewire.

I need help, I have a small little hobby company whose survival is at risk because of apples stupid little quirks!

thanks

I had a lot of trouble making FCP play nicely!

Eventually the only way I could get everything to work was to start from scratch.

Read this thread (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=68319) for details.

My mac is a 4x2.5 GHz PowerPC G5, running FCP 5.1.4. I have Sequence Preset set to HDV-1080i60, Capture Preset set to HDV, Device Control Preset set to HDV FireWire Basic, but Final Cut Pro still isn't recognizing the HDV tape in camcorder (sony HVR-A1U) (connected by firewire) for capture! Anybody have a suggestion?
Cindy

Have you checked your camera settings? I don't remember what you need to do with the A1 off the top of my head (I do remember though that the menus are HORRIBLE), but just make sure you've got all the right options selected (HDV, Downconvert Off, etc.). Most of the time it's the settings hidden away in the menus that are giving you grief.

Once you're sure the camera is set up and ready to rock-and-or-roll, then try dumping the FCP preferences (see: http://fcprescue.andersholck.com/). Use "Easy Setup" to get all the right capture settings.

Also, maybe try changing the firewire cable or using a different firewire port.

Hope this helps...

Chris!

i'm having this same problem. fcp is not seeing my gl1.
i'm running fcp 4, quicktime 7.1.6 and OSX 10.3.9.
will the quicktime trick work for me? update something? don't update?
i'm a newbie here & don't want to mess anything up...
thanks.

Have you gone through all the usual steps to try and narrow down the problem?

- Looked at any of the official Apple Final Cut help sites?
- Checked the Final Cut preferences/settings/options?
- Checked the camera settings?
- Updated everything (Final Cut, Mac OS, Quicktime)?
- Tried capturing using iMovie?
- Tried a different camera?
- Tried a different firewire cable?
- Tried a different computer?
- Trashed the preferences?
- Reinstall Final Cut?
- Reinstall Quicktime?
- Complete System Reinstall?

Have you captured successfully previously using this system and/or camera? If so, what's changed?

Best of luck!

Chris!

Just bought a brand new Intell Mac Pro OSX 10.4 with latest Final Cut Studio 2. So thats FCP v6.0.1 and QuickTime 7.2 and it wont work with my Sony HVR-V1E ! I found this an astounding issue to hit. The camera has worked fine on my WinXP box running Adobe Premiere Pro 3 so it never occured to me that the Mac, with all it's fanfare about being so easy to use would just not work with this popular pro camera. I call Apple and they just say it's not supported and won't tell me if it ever will be. So dilema now is do I sell the camera or the Mac!

So come on Apple, this is such basic stuff to get right! If you dont want Adobe to steal your crown, fix these silly compatability issues.

Kevin

Something sounds wrong there. When they say a camera is "unsupported" it means that it has not been tested and approved by Apple. I think quite a lot of cameras fit that description but nevertheless they work fine.

I am on an older version of FCP, but AFAIK the V1 should be fine. There used to be an issue with 24p, but I thought that had been fixed. I suggest starting a new thread in this forum with a more descriptive title, like "V1 compatability with FCP" and you should get some helpful responses.

OK that's good news, I was trying to encode 1080i not 25p (we have 25p in UK not 24p) so will start a new thread with more detail of the issue.

I'm now having the same problem, FCP will not see my XHA1. But if I goto iMovie HD it see the camera. I don't understand what's happening here. Any help?

What version of Final Cut Pro are you running?

Has it worked in the past? What's changed? Did you update Quicktime/FCP?

Have you double checked your settings in both FCP and on the camera?

Have you tried trashing the preferences?

Chris!

Hey Chris! I'm running FCP 5.1.4, yes it's worked in the past. I think I found my problem. The past footage was recorded in SD mode I think, I just recently change the setting in FCP's preferences to HDV in capture and it recognize it for some reason. My latest footage was recorded in HDV 24F and I think that was the problem. I still had FCP set to the below settings that were good enough for SD capture, I guess?

Before changing here was the settings:
1 The XHA1 in VTR mode.
2 FCP was set to DVCPRO HD Firewire.
3 FCP capture was set to DV-NTSC.

Then I set it to:
1 The XHA1 in VTR mode.
2 FCP HDV 1080i 60 or 30.
3 FCP capture to HDV.

Then it worked, I could have it a little backwards because I'm not at my main workstation, but I think I got it, I'm going to trying it again to make sure. If not I'll be back here need help from you all pro's....lol... I'm still a newbie but I'm coming along. :) Thanks a million.

My daughter has been using a JVC sr-vs30 deck with Final Cut Studio 1. For some reason it is no longer capturing from the Deck. FCP doesn't complain when it comes up and System Profiler say it's there. But the capture window only shows colorbars and says the preview is disabled.

She's tried everything except re-installing Quicktime.

QUESTION: Will the reinstall of Quicktime wipe out her Quicktime Pro registration from FCP studio that shows up as Pro Apps in the Quicktime registration window?

She's tried everything except re-installing Quicktime.

I don't think messing with QT is going to solve anything. This sounds like an issue between the deck and FCP. Somewhere, in FCP or in the deck, a setting is probably wrong.

Just a followup... Nothing worked... This is a nice dual (VHS/DV) deck unit and I was reluctant to get rid of it. When installing it at another location, I opened the manual and happened upon a section under Edit From Camcorder (p57) that had a Note about the DV interface. Turns out there is a dubbing direction button that needs to be set to send the VHS signal to the DV side of the deck. This is required in order to capture VHS off this deck's firewire interface. FYI to others who have the same problem.

Hello,
any Z-7 filmer with FCP 5,
after 6 years editing SD, I just tried to set up for HDV / Z7. Most settings are straight forward, but with the device control setting I stumbled: there is a setting for HDV firewire, then Sony HDV firewire, then Sony RS-422, then RS-232 (4 settings) + 3 more Sony settings
Apple suggests to look at their website in case of problems, I did, but to no avail.
Other settings are clear (HDV 1080i 25p, Field Dominance: NONE, etc).
When closing the settings box, FCP vanishes from the desktop! Something stirs!
Your help is very much appreciated.
Gerd.

Just do an "Easy Setup". That will apply the most appropriate device control settings.

Hi Chris,
I've tried that already (several times), it didn't work.
Today I spoke to Apple Pro Applications: Neither FCP Studio & FCP Studio 2 officially recognizes the HvR-Z7P camera, so no help from them.
But there must be a way around, because some (or most) of you guys are using it successfully.
The next thing I do: go back from Panther to Tiger, after all, FCP Studio is about 4 years old.
Thanks for your help.
Gerd.

The Z7P certainly works with Final Cut Studio 2. Double check your camera settings, try trashing the Final Cut Pro preferences, etc. There's plenty of advice of what to do already listed in this thread. What format are you recording to? CF Card? Double check all these things, as it SHOULD work fine. Does it work with any other editing packages (i.e. iMovie)?

Thanks for your help again, Chris. I just dig in with the heels and go through all settings again - until it works. There is simply no other option, but I am not in a hurry with it.
Still working on SD on my other computer hard drive, so I did not have to touch these settings.
Cheers, Gerd.

Have re-installed Tiger and FCP 5 without updates, and it works fine now. It seems to be a compatibility problem, when software components are updated several times, but the core of the software program lags 3-4 years behind.
On capture it divides my selected footage into separate clips at the stop and start points within camera recordings.
Carl Walters highlighted this problem earlier today, perhaps it can be finetuned in the preferences/settings.
Gerd

I had the same issue. I tried everything and nothing worked until I trashed FCPs Preference Files, and now it works OK!.

I have FCP 6.0.4 and a Sony HVR-Z7.

FCP would not recognize my Canon XHA1. I reset the camera to it's default settings. Works fine. To reset you need a paper clip as a tool and insert it in the small hole that lies in the LCD bay adjacent to the speaker. Hold down for 5 seconds and walla.

Enjoy