JVC Hard Drive Camera and FCP

Is there anyone out there using a JVC Hard Drive Camera and FCP. Would like to hear what you have to say about file types, conversion, etc. Was hoping for a quicker download, but converting is taking about as much time as download tape. Any suggestions?

I "might" be able to help.
I, too have a JVC hard drive camera. Not the same model as you, and not HD, but still the same idea. One big difference between our cameras is that your camera creates a "TOD" file, and mine creates an "MOD" file. The difference between the two may void my advice, but I doubt it.
I had similar problems converting to a file useable by FCP. I finally called JVC, and they told me to get "Capty MPEG Edit EX". I dropped the fifty bucks and it works great. A little slow, but it works. I still think it's better than capturing tape.
I HAVE learned though that buying a hard drive camera was somewhat of a mistake. By compressing the video to be saved on the drive, we've already lost something. My needs don't require super high quality 3 CCD video, so it really doesn't matter that much for me. I don't know about your needs.
Secondly, I've downloaded a free program called MPEG Streamclip. It works great. It's a little quicker than Capty and it was free. Also, I took one of my MOD files and changed it to TOD, and it opened just fine. Also, when exporting with MPEG Streamclip, if you choose "Export To Quicktime", use the default "Apple Motion JPEG A" setting and choose "unscaled" for your video and 100% quality on your sound, there is no need to render in FCP. BIG time saver for me. Now, somebody that knows way more about this than I do could probably flame me and say I'm "converting crap to crappier" or something, but it looks pretty good to me, and it works for what I'm doing.

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