ALERT: Power OFF before changing Firewire or switching HDV/DV

[Stuart Nimmo]

Picasa Web Albums - Stu - Stuart's mods...

[Shaun Roemich]

Stuart, that is one UNIQUE looking 2xx! Thanks for posting.

[Michael Lafleur]

Originally Posted by Stuart Nimmo

Picasa Web Albums - Stu - Stuart's mods...

Stuart, you are an amazing inventor, almost jazz-like in your ability to improvise! I love the pic…

I’m just curious why you wouldn’t simply order a firewire port isolator and find some way of semi-permanently adhering that short 6” cable to your camera’s firewire port. I have two JVC HD-100U cameras with DR-100’s and mine just arrive in the mail today.

Perhaps I’m mistaken but once the unpowered isolator cable is secured between the camera and ANY other cable leading to a firewire device, shouldn’t that successfully protect one from frying the camera board? I do appreciate that your rig also ensures that one does not inadvertently unplug the cable and thus, interrupt recording to the DR unit.

Again, thanks for investing the time and sharing your experiences to find a workaround for this vulnerability and feel free to enlighten me if I’m too naive in my trust of simply using a port isolator.

Cheers,

Michael Lafleur

[Stuart Nimmo]

Glad you found it worth ploughing through! I guess it's obvious that I like tinkering with my kit; I do really enjoy finding solutions when I can.
Michael, I've wondered if a port isolator was a sure solution. There are others who need convincing too, I discussed this with Bebob Broadcast Engineering in Germany and they weren't convinced enough to get into developing this as a solution. You would have to fix it to the camera.

Another important reason is that getting port isolators here in Europe is difficult and very, very costly - I could buy one from the American company mentioned earlier in here Tim's thread, but for some very odd reason their postage charge to Europe costs about the same as the isolator, why charge $50 when $5.40 would cover it? I might cannibalise a firewire cable and see what can be done. If you smell a brightly coloured BANG you know it didn't work.

I liked the idea of a "pivot point cable" © Stuart Nimmo. Like a child's seesaw, if you pull on the cable it actually pushes the firewire plug in. It's very quickly removed if you want to, (as are the other mods). I was also convinced that mistakenly offering up the plug upside down was far too easy and very dangerous - in fact I had a French Producer on the phone this evening asking if I hired out my cameras because he thought he "might have fried his JVC Firewire board". I had to say "no never, because someone would almost certainly fry my camera's board too". I don't think any firewire equipped cameras are safely hireable or lendable.

My own tests shown that this "pivot fix" really helps avoid the three problems. With the white line on the upper plug surface and the clip to the left of a correctly orientated FW plug it is difficult to get that wrong too.

I'm very pleased with the Matte box or lens hood mod, it makes use of a really good filter holder and serious Tiffen filters, the slides are rotatable for ND Grads on difficult horizons. It's own hood was much repaired and too fragile, with a fair bit of work the Lee Filters W/A self supporting bellows make a perfect replacement.

INCIDENTALLY! If you want to mount anything heavy on the stock lens (W/A front element, matte box or other), you do need to correct the stock lens fault and reinforce and stiffen the filter ring end. This has been discussed elsewhere however, you do need a narrow external diameter 82mm filter ring to do this. I've now found that the current VICICO MCUV 82mm UV filters are almost exactly right and are very cheap. I wouldn't want to use the glass itself on HD, so the sollution? There is a small inner ring on the VICICO holding in the glass. I doubt that you will be able to unscrew it but if you place the filter on a flat surface and carefully tap the glass with a hammer (my favourite instrument) the glass will unstick come loose and finally crack. You can then carefully lift out the glass pieces and then you will be able to tighten the inner filter ring and you have a perfect front-end lens reinforcer; the original Fujinon lens hood will, (with a bit of encouragement) slip over this particular VISICO ring, so you can leave it on, I have little doubt that the lens hood lock will "ease" a bit.

The twin battery mount system? Well.... I probably wouldn't have done that if I didn't already have the PAG system and spare PAG and AB battery plates. It’s useful on long Network news 'stakeouts' where top light and finding more power at 3 a.m. can be a drag. In these situations borrowing and lending with other channels crews is common in Europe, we also get each other out of the merde at times by swapping footage so firewire in/ out is great - but don't tell our producers!

Viewfinders are notoriously fragile, the more you can protect them the better. As for the rest they're modifications I've always used and found useful, so I just carried them forward and adapted them for my 201E (a 200U with PAL DV). I've got a number of other modifications that people might like, but I'll post some better photographs of this lot first and see if they inspire anyone.

I'm just so grateful for this forum and all the great help here, especially Tim's, his DVD is ACE! And the 200/ 250 scene files really point the way and give confidence to try things further.

[Ted Ramasola]

Like a leather biker of hdxxs!! It a harley! Very cool mods there Stuart.

[Stuart Nimmo]

Originally Posted by Ted Ramasola

Like a leather biker of hdxxs!! It a harley! Very cool mods there Stuart.

I was expecting a much more dubious comment from someone Ted! something about "leather strings" and/ or "The boy has a problem..."

In fact leather is a great material for protecting cameras and not so very difficult to work.... You just need a cooperative cow.

Back to Tim's Firewire warning, it's clearly a BIG problem, and not just for JVC. Has anyone considered trying my suggestion but need help?

[Chas Briggs]

ok lets say you have a XHA1 and an hv 30 plugged them into each other to dub guess what now the hv30 cant se the XHA1's video so i unplugged the XHA1 and plugged it into my computer so far 3 programs cant see my XHA1 I'm guessing i fried my XHA1 fire wire didnt i

[Chas Briggs]

I was just told they cant repair my XHA1 that they can no longer get the fire wire port board for it from canon or any of their other sources . now I thought Federal trade laws require manufactures to continue making parts up to 5 years after discontinuing manufacturing a product Cause they now make the XHA1S.

The good side I get a new camera because I bought the extended warranty.

[George Kilroy]

I've got a slightly different but I think related problem with the firewire connection on an HD201. When I try to connect to a PC with the 6-6 pin cable the computer does not even 'see' the camera. I've tried it on two PCs, yet when I use a 6-4 pin to my laptop it is there but there is no device control available (Premiere Pro 2). It will capture but only manually.
Can anyone point me towards a solution so that I can capture direct to my editing PC with CS4. I have contacted JVC in London but they say have never heard of this problem.

[Judd Bares]

I just had to send my JVC GYHD110u back for this repair...not heeding the warning will totally trash the firewire component-to the tune of 1566.00. You read right. The part alone is 1200.00...like 1/4 the cost of the camera. UGHHHH

[Chas Briggs]

Originally Posted by Chas Briggs

I was just told they cant repair my XHA1 that they can no longer get the fire wire port board for it from canon or any of their other sources . now I thought Federal trade laws require manufactures to continue making parts up to 5 years after discontinuing manufacturing a product Cause they now make the XHA1S.

The good side I get a new camera because I bought the extended warranty.

They did fix it miss communication it had to go to canon to be fixed... I forgot to update this

[Andrew Carter]

FireWire Port Isolator

Hi, does anyone know where to buy this in the UK? I've sorted a laptop, onlocation program, and fire wire 6 pin, but I cant find an isolator anywhere?
Thanks