I did a search, couldn't find anything, but if this has been discussed before, sorry.

In the manual, it says to power off both the PC and the GL2 prior to hooking up the firewire connection to download to the PC...

Is this necessary? The thought of powering my PC down everytime I want to hook up my GL2 to it irritates me. Switching the GL2 off and on is no big deal in my mind.

thanks,

Karl

I leave my firewire cable connected all the time to my PC. In that case I see no reason for powering down the PC.

So I also just turn off my XM2 to connect it.

AFAIK, Firewire is "hot swappable", so you should be able to connect or disconnect any device without powering down any unit. I never had any problems with that. Maybe it's just a precaution from Canon.

I don´t want to start a rumor here, but I think I´ve read somewhere that you can burn the firewire port in the camera if you plug or unplug it hot.

So just to be safe I never do it with my camera on..

On the other hand I never turn off my PC to plug the Firewire.. allthough I always plug it first in the PC and then on the CAM...

PC Firewire card 40$

A cold beer in a bar 2€

XM2 burnt firewire card trip to Canon Service and a couple of weeks without my camera, it´s priceless..

For everything else there´s mastercard..
(which by the way I don´t own one).

that's kinda what I figured. One of those disclaimers they put in there to protect themselves.

I don't think having the camera off before plug in is much of a hassle, but the powering down the PC, that's just too much.

thanks for the assurance guys.


Karl