FCP not seeing your camera? Try this at DVinfo.net

Boyd Ostroff · August 23rd, 2005, 07:34 AM

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

Geoff Holland · September 18th, 2005, 12:24 PM

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.

Boyd Ostroff · September 18th, 2005, 01:11 PM

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.

Geoff Holland · September 18th, 2005, 11:25 PM

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?

Boyd Ostroff · September 19th, 2005, 07:02 AM

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.

Harikrishnan Ponnurangam · October 1st, 2005, 01:11 PM

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

Mike Phan · December 21st, 2005, 11:53 PM

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.

Harikrishnan Ponnurangam · December 22nd, 2005, 12:33 AM

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

Boyd Ostroff · December 22nd, 2005, 03:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harikrishnan Ponnurangam

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.

Harikrishnan Ponnurangam · December 22nd, 2005, 10:41 AM

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.

Mike Phan · December 30th, 2005, 11:50 PM

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

Harikrishnan Ponnurangam · December 31st, 2005, 12:47 AM

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

Let us know,
thanks,
Hari

A.D.Wyatt Norton · January 22nd, 2006, 02:22 PM

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/

Boyd Ostroff · January 22nd, 2006, 05:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A.D.Wyatt Norton

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.

Chris Westerstrom · August 31st, 2006, 07:04 AM

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

August 23rd, 2005, 07:34 AM	#1
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,787	FCP not seeing your camera? Try this 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

September 18th, 2005, 12:24 PM	#2
Geoff Holland Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Montreal, QC Posts: 60	Another solution... 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.

September 18th, 2005, 11:25 PM	#4
Geoff Holland Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Montreal, QC Posts: 60	Thanks 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?

October 1st, 2005, 01:11 PM	#6
Harikrishnan Ponnurangam Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: St.Louis, USA Posts: 145	*Unable to locate Apple Firewire NTSC(720480)** 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

December 21st, 2005, 11:53 PM	#7
Mike Phan Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Elk Grove, CA Posts: 93	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. __________________ PowerMac G5 Dual 2.5 2.5GB RAM/500GB/9800 256 Radeon/DeckLink Pro FCP HD/AE 6.5/DVD Studio Pro/Motion Canon XL2/Glidecam 4000/SteadyStick Sony PVM-1350 Monitor

September 18th, 2005, 01:11 PM	#3
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,787	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.

September 19th, 2005, 07:02 AM	#5
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,787	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.

December 22nd, 2005, 12:33 AM	#8
Harikrishnan Ponnurangam Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: St.Louis, USA Posts: 145	FCP not seeing camera 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

December 22nd, 2005, 10:41 AM	#10
Harikrishnan Ponnurangam Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: St.Louis, USA Posts: 145	It was a pain 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.

December 30th, 2005, 11:50 PM	#11
Mike Phan Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Elk Grove, CA Posts: 93	Still not working guys...i'm goin to continue to try other ways. Will have to reinstall 10.4. Thanks for the help guys. __________________ PowerMac G5 Dual 2.5 2.5GB RAM/500GB/9800 256 Radeon/DeckLink Pro FCP HD/AE 6.5/DVD Studio Pro/Motion Canon XL2/Glidecam 4000/SteadyStick Sony PVM-1350 Monitor

December 31st, 2005, 12:47 AM	#12
Harikrishnan Ponnurangam Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: St.Louis, USA Posts: 145	wish i could help Mike, Sorry to hear about that man. I know how you feel it sucks. Reinstallation is the last option. Let us know, thanks, Hari

January 22nd, 2006, 02:22 PM	#13
A.D.Wyatt Norton Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: San Francisco, California Posts: 27	Here's what worked for me 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/ __________________ If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

August 31st, 2006, 07:04 AM	#15
Chris Westerstrom Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Gothenburg, Sweden Posts: 259	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

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