Well today I took delivery of my new HD100A. I purchased one of the last ones with the rebate that Texas Tapeworks offered. They were great to deal with on the phone.

I charged the small battery, loaded up the "Steve" SCN file and took it out to play in the beautiful spring colors in Maryland.

I shot about 10 minutes of footage and then took it in to hook up to my Mac to download into FCP. (HDV30p).

I made sure everything was powered off before hooking the cam to the Powerbook.

I ran FCP and it saw the camera. I then tried to batch capture but all i get is a black screen with timecode on the tape. (actually the screen is a dark blue color). The same image shows up on the LCD on the camera. I powered everything off then tried to play the footage just on the LCD screen on the cam. Still the same dark screen.

I called the vendor and they are calling JVC and I will call the Pro Service Center Line in the morning. I have checked all the settings and everything seems fine. This camera is an "A" model so I am surprised with the dead camera. In fact one reason that I went with the HD100 was because of the upgrade that they offered to fix several problems with the camera.

Hopefully I can get another camera, but I am a little worried now about the quality of the camera. It's to bad because I was blown away by the image I saw through the viewfinder. I felt like I was using my old DSR-570.

Any ideas before I call JVC in the morning?

Thanks,

Dan Weber

I had DSR-500 before the HD100 and I can tell you that the image quality of the JVC beats the DSR-500 in a big way. I liked my SONY for its reliability, there is no question about that. But since I can compare very similar shots from both cameras back to back on an HD monitor I can say that I am happy with my purchase.

If your camera is faulty, get it replaced and all should be fine. Remember, our DSR-500/570 was a tried and over many years improved technology going back to early betacams while this thing is all new - hence these bumps on the road.

Dan, let me know how it goes.
kfreed@jvc.com

Ken,

Thanks for the input.

I will call the JVC Pro Support line tomorrow morning. I will then talk the the vendor again and see if they can send me a replacement camera. They told me today they had one they could send me, but I needed to talk to JVC Pro Support first.

I think that the vendor is going to call Carl Hicks as well since he is the rep for their region.

Thanks,

Dan Weber

Was the camera completely powered down before you inserted the FireWire cable connecting it to your Mac?

Get to bed!


[edit to keep me on topic: I blew up the FW port on my HD100 this way. First time on any firewire device for me. I was sad.]

Hey, I can't sleep either. Must be like the Disneyworld commercial..."we're too exited to sleep." ;-) See you guys tomorrow.

-gb-

Was the camera completely powered down before you inserted the FireWire cable connecting it to your Mac?


Chris,

Yes the camera was powered down as was the laptop. I am paranoid about these things.

The video won't play on the LCD on the camera either.

Dan Weber

I contaced Dan today, and asked him to do a test recording on a different tape. He did, and the camera is working fine now. He's going to keep an eye on it - test it out completly. He's got plenty of time to exchange it if any problems come up again.

I contaced Dan today, and asked him to do a test recording on a different tape. He did, and the camera is working fine now. He's going to keep an eye on it - test it out completly. He's got plenty of time to exchange it if any problems come up again.


Well Carl beat me to posting an update.

We tried a new tape and now everything seems to be fine. I will try work out any kinks in the camera over the next few weeks to see if it happens again.

Great support from JVC on this. One of the reasons that I bought the camera.

Dan Weber