Digital Video Recorder with Firewire 400 and new iMac

I just got a new iMac which has only 1 firewire800 and no firewire 400 ports. My digital video camcorder has a firewire 400 cable to transfer taped recordings to the computer (I want to import using iMovie 09). So, do I simply need to buy a new firewire 800 cable that will plug into my digital camcorder? The reason I'm hesitant is that I've tried using a USB connection, and iMovie 09 didn't open and doesn't recognize that the digital camcorder is connected when I use USB. Does iMovie 09 just no longer recognize my several year old Samsung digital camcorder, or does it just not recognize it with a USB connection, and it will be fine if I get a firewire 800 connection that fits the new iMac? Is there another type of converter--e.g., a cable that allows a firewire 400 to plug in on one end and has the firewire 800 connection on the other end?
Thanks

Thanks for the reply. I went ahead and got a new cable and now I can plug for digital video camcorder into my new Mac. Unfortunately, as I feared, the Mac still doesn't recognize the camcorder. I checked the system profiler with the camcorder plugged in, and under Firewire Bus it reads Unknown Device:
FireWire Bus:
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
Unknown Device:
Manufacturer: 0xF0
Model: Unknown
GUID: 0xF000FFFFFFFF
Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Sub-units:
Unknown Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x10001
Unit Spec ID: 0xA02D
Am I just out of luck--the new mac just doesn't recognize my slightly out of date digital video recorder? Or should I be able to get a driver to make it work?

Similar Messages

HT3775 Video recorded with a digital video recorder with H.264 and Avi options. how do I manage to preview the video and burn it on a disc

I have a problem previewing data recorded on DVR machine H.264 trnsfered to the apple machine using a flash disk.
The data is in form of video footage.
The Mac player warns of missing codec to allow the preview.
How do I tell which codec and how will I achieve my goal?

Sorry, you need to convert if you want it on iPad.
iPad video formats:
Video formats supported: H.264 video up to 1080p, 30 frames per second, High Profile level 4.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG‑4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

VIDEO: capturing w/ firewire 400 and USB 2 on Final Cut

I didn't think of it at the time because it didn't make sense then and it doesn't still. I exchanged a PowerBook G4 for a new MBP and realized, too late, that it had one less firewire port. ARG.
I've heard 1) that USB 2 is just as good as firewire, 2) that its as good only if you're using a PC-based machine, and 3) that it should be avoided altogether when it comes to editing video.
Can I absolutly positively use firewire from my camera to capture video onto my USB 2 external HD without dropped frames or studdered video?
AND
If my HD is FAT formatted for my old Dell notebook, would that have an effect on the write speed when I use it with a Mac?
Also, it seems like a bad idea, but can I daisy-chain my camera and my external HD??

do not use usb for capturing video. the max data rate is about the same as firewire 400, but it doesn't offer as high of a continued transfer rate. in short, you'll lose some frames.
the cool thing about a firewire 400 port, though, is that you can daisy chain up to 8 firewire devices to that one port and not have to worry about it. i usually have about 3 or 4 external drives hooked up to each other and my firewire, and i just plug my camera into the firewire port on one of the hard drives. it works just as well as if i had plugged it into my computer.
there's really no need for an extra firewire port or firewire 800 unless you're doing a really involved, highly detailed project, like a feature film, that would require higher data rates and more storage space.

Problem with Setup Assistant and New iMac

I just purchased a new imac intel (actually 2010 model from MacMall on closeout) and I want to transfer my files over from my old imac - 2004 G5 running 10.5.8
During the initial start up of the new imac I choose the option to transfer my information from another mac (using setup assistant).
I connect using firewire and start up the old mac in firewire mode (holding down T). After the new mac calculates the files to tranfer I cannot chose the continue button - the button is greyed out. In addition the remaining space available shows a negative (red number). This also occurs if I choose to transfer from a time machine back up on an external drive. Help.

You didn't mention what version of OS X is on the new system. I would strongly recommend starting over and using Pondini's
Lion Setup Assistant tips
or
Snow Leopard Setup Assistant tips
depending on what the new system has loaded on it. If you have been using Time Machine or a bootable clone backup for the old system you can restore from that backup rather than having to mess with Target Disk mode.
If you still have difficulty call AppleCare, they're there to help on this type of issue. The number is in the owners manual.

Any way to connect older digital video recorder to my 2011 imac thunderbolt port, instead of defaulting to firewire?

Dont know if theres an adaptor on the way or if i have to wait for a thunderbolt capable vide recorder....

What ports are available on your digital video recorder?? If Firewire is the only digital interface on your video deck, then even if there was an adapter/cable (which there isn't any currently) that went from Thunderbolt-->Firewire, the speed would still step down to the speed of your firewire connection (400 or 800).
If you are wanting to take advantage of TB speeds (going from computer to video deck), then you may have to wait for awhile until some pro/pro-sumer level video decks come out.
If you already have a video recorder that captures SDI or HDMI (or just want to capture analog)... Blackmagic has a video converter available already...
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/ultrastudio3d/
Hope this helps...

I have a digital voice recorder with a 3.5mm mic and headphone jack and want to transfer some recorded lecture to my mac book pro. The mac book does not have 3.5mm jacks. Does anyone know if a jack to USB converter would work?

I have a digital voice recorder with a 3.5mm microphone and headphone jack and want to transfer some recorded lectures to my mac book pro. The mac book does not have 3.5mm jacks. Does anyone know if a jack to USB converter would work?

Is there a pattern to the time of day or other detail that may be
traced back to a OS X system cause of this odd phenomenon?
Are there any copies of system files on any of the attached USB
external drives? Any libraries, such as iTunes, iPhoto, etc?
Once the drives are indexed by Spotlight, are their permissions
ignored by the OS X? Content, if neutral, should not affect the
wake or sleep cycle; especially if they're ignored by the OS X.
Could there be a bad cable or other component? If so that would
be a difficult process of elimination to detect it. Usually replacing
most suspect components in the USB stream (external to Macs)
is a rote way to mechanically test that idea; & not 100% sure.
Does the equipment all have a good ground to the utility or house
electrical field? An intermittent ground may affect more than sleep.
Hard to say at this point. Maybe a late-night talk radio guru on
remote viewing could peer into your situation and sleuth it out?
Sorry to have run out of ideas, but the process must be electrical
& mechanical to some extent. - Or perhaps odd software inspired.
Do you have any phone-home spyware items inside, just jumping
at the chance to spill your information? Little Snitch may help.
PS: Perhaps the computer needs to go into Apple & have a genius
or product specialist at AASP test the unit thoroughly... BlueTooth?
see:
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Wake+reason:+XHC1
Good luck & happy computing!
edited 2x

I have adobe creative suite 5.5 and have just bought a Sony Video Recorder with 4K. What preset should I use for importing video footage? Alternatively do I need a more recent version of the software?

I have adobe creative suite 5.5 and have just bought a Sony Video Recorder with 4K. What preset should I use for importing video footage? Alternatively do I need a more recent version of the software? If so, what version do I need and can I download it from Adobe.

I have adobe creative suite 5.5 and have just bought a Sony Video Recorder with 4K. What preset should I use for importing video footage? Alternatively do I need a more recent version of the software? If so, what version do I need and can I download it from Adobe.

Audio interface for 24" iMac - conflict between firewire 400 and 800?

So, what I have now:
2.8ghz iMac, latest model, newest firmware, running OS 10.4.11, connected to an M-Audio Ozonic Firewire 400 interface, and I was hoping to run said interface while ALSO connecting a firewire 800 hard drive for samples, or for recording to.
Alas, as soon as I turn on the firewire 800 drive, a model sold by Other World Computing and containing an Oxford chipset, all audio stops on the Ozonic keyboard and is replaced by clicks and pops. The only way I've found to get the audio back is with a complete restart of the system, with the firewire 800 drive OFF.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the M-Audio device, it's a small keyboard and firewire audio interface in one unit. Perhaps not the highest quality, but my Powerbook G4 1.67 with firewire 800 CAN run both the Ozonic and the firewire 800 drive at the same time. With no interruption in sound playback.
I did some research and discovered that in the iMac I bought, the two firewire channels, 400 and 800, appear to be on the same PCI E bus, and perhaps will NEVER work together.
Is that right? I thought the whole point of firewire was how it's able to negotiate such communications and work seamlessly with other firewire devices. I know, I know, I'm living in dreamland, it's just sad that a much older Apple product (my PPC notebook), can do something a brand new model cannot. Sigh.
Any advice? Any chance 10.5 fixes this?
If not, should my next audio interface be USB 2.0? Any thoughts from the Audio pros out there (besides 'you bought the wrong machine) would be great.

Sorry I can't help with your specific query as I have never used that Audio hardware.
I am a video man myself and went for the 24" 2.8Ghz iMac as i believe the Firewire 400 and 800 Buses are seperate. I know on older iMacs and even the MacPro the FW800 and 400 buses were on the same bus and when connecting a firewire video camera to the FW400 bus, the 800 would lower it's speed to 400 to accomodate or in some cases would lose the connection all together.
I currently have a FW800 Hard drive connected to the FW800 port and a video deck in the FW400 port and they both run at full speed 800/400 respectively.
This leads me to believe Apple have fixed the Firewire sharing problem.
I know it's no help but just though I would share my experience with the Firewire on the new iMac.

Need digital video recorder

I need a digital video recorder to work with a Sony lipstick cam. It doesn't have to be HD. I was using an older camcorder, but it died. Most new ones don't have this feature anymore. It doesn't have to be a camcorder, and it should be inexpensive cuz I don't want to pour more money into this. It's for a helmet cam.

You need an analog to digital converter to play the video from a VCR through into iMovie. What I used with my VCR is a Canopus ADVC-100 converter.They're not cheap, around $175-200.
If you have access to a digital video camera that has pass through capability you can run the VCR throuith it into your Mac and iMovie. Maybe even rent one.
There may be other converters on the market today as I did my work a number of years ago.
OT

Mac Pro Early 2008 problems with firewire 400 drives

I am having some sporadic problems with firewire 400 drives and am trying to figure out my best options going forward. System 10.5.2 has hung on me twice in the first week of use, and each time I noticed from console there were some problems accessing one or more of these drives (even though I wasn't doing any reads/writes to/from them). Just before one of the crashes, Disk Utility also had problems "seeing" these drives. My external firewire drives are:
Maxtor OneTouch III 750GB
Acomdata enclosure/Seagate 400GB
LaCie d2/160GB
LaCie w/Lightscribe DVD
I have this "cobbled" arrangement because I just upgraded from an eMac and needed these drives to manage video files, audio files, photos, etc. While I'd love to go out and buy new internals to install in my spare bays, and migrate the data to them, I will have to do that in stages as my budget is tapped out at the moment. My MacPro is the base version of the early 2008 units, with 300GB internal.
In the interim, is it worth troubleshooting firmware updates for these externals, or am I destined to continue to have firewire problems? Is there a straight-forward/inexpensive way to remove these drives from enclosures/install in drive bays with an adaptor? I believe the external hard drives are all ATA type drives.
Thanks in advance for any counsel.

I would assume that the Maxtor may be SATA. Does it have an eSATA port? Also, there were a lot of threads (in OS X Leopard forum) about those OneTouch units. Same can be said for LaCie problems.
Yes, check for firmware and configuration. In some cases, and what I do with any new OS, is to reformat all drives - gradually. Given the age of the eMac I'd guess firmware is out of date, and that the drives are formatted some time ago. While you don't have to use GUID, it is a good idea eventually, or just reformat a drive.
Don't forget to test your drives with Disk Warrior (4.1) also.
750GB WD Caviar is $139 SATA.
http://eshop.macsales.com/Specials/XLR8YourMac.cfm?Criteria=&sort=&man=Western%2 0Digital
Are you using daisy chains? you have one FW bus shared by front and back ports. Do you have any on FW800 or using FW400 to FW800 adapter cable? PCI Express FW400 card might even help a little.
Never had trouble with OWC enclosures:
http://www.macsales.com/firewire/

Last Mac Pro with Firewire 400?

The new Mac Pro's look nice, but without Firewire 400 they're useless to me... Can anyone tell me when the last Mac Pro with Firewire 400 was released?...and what the speeds were on them? Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

Fair points, to be sure. I just think that, given the number of common/popular devices that are FW400 only, the removal of FW400 ports is a bit premature at this time. Like the OP said, it would be frustrating to buy a very expensive computer, and immediately have to expand in order to make use of fairly standard and not yet out-dated gear.
Dave Sawyer wrote:
Sorry to disagree, but to me, expecting a company to go to the expense of engineering in a different physical port just to save someone from having to use a simple, inexpensive cable adaptor seems a bit silly.
It couldn't be that hard/expensive, given that previous models had both. Though I certainly understand the idea of reducing cost wherever possible.

How can i request the actual time code of digital video recorder, i am using RS232 interface for asking actual time code of digital video recording

how can i request the actual time code of digital video recorder, i am using RS232 interface for asking actual time code of digital video recording

If you have an RS-232 interface to the digital video recorder, it may be that you can send a command to the video recorder in order to get the time code sent back to your application - you would then read this as a string and then incorporate this data into your program.
The best source of help will be any documentation you have relating to the serial (RS-232) interface with the digital video recorder. This documentation should have commands that you can send to the recorder and expected response strings that you should get back from the device. This task should be straightforward but can often be frustrating without documentation about the video recorder. This will not be something that you can "guess" - past experience in writing serial communication ap
plications has shown that a good manual is your best friend.
Failing this if you have any source code for example programs that have already been written to communicate with the recorder, you might be able to extract the relevant ASCII strings and use them within your application. This is true whether you are using LabVIEW or a text-based language.
Jeremy

Digital Video Recorder for MacBook Pro 10.4.9

Hi-
I was hoping someone could suggest a lower end digital video recorder (under $500) that is compatible with the MacBook Pro. I bought a sony recorder before I bought the macbook and it wasnt compatible with imovie. Before I purchase another recorder I would love to hear feedback on a decent model and experiences people have had with different models.

digital video recorder (under $500) that is compatible with the MacBook Pro. I bought a sony recorder before I bought the macbook and it wasnt compatible with imovie.
Are you talking about a computer CD/DVD reader/writer or actual DVD recorder (an update of the old VHS recorders). If you are talking about a DVD recorder, as far as I know. NONE are directly compatable with the iApps because the content they record is mpg-2 encoded and would have to be converted to DV for use in the iApps.
What is it you are trying to do?
F Shippey

Is firewire 400 and 800 on the same bus?

I have heard of the problems putting a camera and external hard drive on the same bus for capturing video. Does the 400 and 800 ports share the same bus and will using both with one connected to an external 800 drive and the 400 port for the camera be a good solution for capturing video?
Much appreciated.

yes, on PowerBooks w/1394a and 1394b ports, and on the G5's with 1394a and 1394b ports, they all share a common bus
sometimes if you have a lot of activity on the bus, you might have some frame drop out with a camera connected (but this is not a constant)
it never hurts to add a PCI card or cardbus card for PowerBooks and create a second FireWire channel that is independent of the builtin ports

Does Target Disk Mode work between FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 ports?

Can I mount one as an external volume for the other Mac and vice versa? The one with FireWire 400 port runs on OS X 10.5, and FireWire 800 one has OS X 10.6 installed. If it works, I am thinking of buying an 800-400 adapter.

Can I mount one as an external volume for the other Mac and vice versa?
Yes.
(47103)

Digital Video Recorder with Firewire 400 and new iMac

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for