XHA1s is my FW port fried?
 

Bought two xhA1s in September 09. UK spec. Both have worked fine, one was purchased by a friend and the other I kept. Haven't used the camera in a few months - but went to capture video on it yesterday through FCP and no go. Since then I have searched everywhere and tried everything - including buying and using a new firewire cable and connecting to my imac and my macbook pro. Nothing was recognised via the firewire connection. Though I could connect my Macbook pro to my imac and make them see each other. So the conclusion I'm coming to is that the firewire port on the camera is fried. Except what the chances of that happening to both cameras. I got my friend to bring hsi xha1s over and we couldn't get that working either. As a general rule I always connect all my cables before turning the camera on. So I did not how swap the firewire cable when the problem first occured. I did of course hot swap after the problem occured as I was unaware that there was any issue in doing so. [Nothing in the manual about it or on Canon's website] I only found out there were issues once I consulted the internet.

The LCD screen shows the flashing HDV / DV in as well as the flashing ch1/ch2 indicator. My settings on FCP are correct. iMovie does not recognise the camera and as stated System profiler doesn't recognise it either.

So accepting that it probably is a bad / fried port I want to ask who else has experienced this. When did it happen to you? Did you send the camera off for repair? How much did it cost? If I can get some idea of how prevalent this problem is I might have more bargaining power with Canon.

Oh and if anyone had the issue but somehow resolved it by other means please let me know. For example is their another way of capturing that doesn't cost the earth - I know people use hv10 cameras for example - but even second hand on ebay they're coming up at ridiculous prices.

Any and all help gratefully appreciated.

Can the camcorders see each other if you try connect them for a IEEE1384 transfer? IF so, the ports are OK.

Any chance you could try it on a different (maybe a Windows) computer just in case there is some subtle setup issue?

Can you try a different DV camcorder on your Mac?

hi Len,
If your friends camera also cannot connect to the computer then I suspect the problem lies with the computer.
Previously I have jumped through hoops with this issue on my PC and the solution was to install a new firewire card.
I tried uninstalling drivers etc and system restores but a new firewire card has always fixed the problem.

I have fried a port once shortly after i purchased them and got it fixed under warranty by canon uk.
Very fast turn round and it came back with a sticker in the manual warning not to hot swap.
I knew i had fried it due to an electrical burning smell at the rear of the camera!
You can contact canon through their web site. Took about a week to get the camera back.
I do suspect that your problem lies with your computer though.
Good luck john

With an XHa1 (not the S version, it may have a better firewire port) I found that it was very "twitchy" in that a tiny wiggle of the cable would break the connection...once broken, one had to start all over again with the recognition process. I hope they have improved the port but it is a definite weak point on the early model.

Thanks for the replies so far.

I've tried it on three computers so far - but they are all Macs. So maybe a windows machine might be the answer. I can also try the camera to camera idea.

Have you surfed the Apple/Mac video communities for any possible helpful posts there?

On camera (4 conductor) firewire/iLink/1394 ports do tend to be anemic no matter where they are. Also, the IEEE1294 standard is not quite as robust or closely followed by all in the industry, implementation vary just enough to cause recognition issues.

I wish you well in your quest.