Need to import via firewire on MBA?

I have an old Sony miniDV camera that only uses Firewire. I want to export video into iMovie using my MBA, since the MBA only has USB, I can't find a Firewire to USB adapter. Do they exist??

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Importing via Firewire question

New to the video thing. Does it make a difference in quality if you import via firewire cable directly connected to the computer versus daisy chained through another firewire device?
Thanks.

donny wrote:
New to the video thing. Does it make a difference in quality if you import via firewire cable directly connected to the computer versus daisy chained through another firewire device?
no.
.. some devices don't 'allow' daisy chaining, we read reports, Canon has some camcorders which don't import at all when other devices are at the fw-port..
but it has no effect on quality.. digital is digital ..

Video 8, Import via Firewire or TBC to DV Deck

I'm working through a project that involves quite a few Video 8 and Hi8 material.
The Sony deck I have can output this video via Firewire, using a DV preset.
My question is, will that workflow produce the best results?
As opposed to outputting analog video, through a time base corrector to a DV deck and then importing it?
Or for example importing it as uncompressed SD (via capture card)?
Or is there yet another method that would produce better results?
I release that Video 8 and Hi8 is not the highest quality material. But I just wanted to make sure I get the best results I can.

I was going to get a time base corrector, as I've already had issues duping the Video 8 to DV through the analog video connection. I've had video and audio drop out, but it doesn't through the Firewire connection. I'm getting the TBC so I can have a DV backup to the original analog source. I plan on comparing the import over the direct analog to Firewire import to the DV import after TBC conversion. Just to see if there is any difference.
But I still wonder what is the best format to import this old Video 8 material. Is DV the best? I'm assuming that the old consumer Video 8 is a step above VHS at best, so maybe the DV setting is fine.

P2 Files Import Via Firewire

I have read on this forum that P2 Files can be imported into the mac via Firewire on the small 1/3" Panasonic Cams, Can the same method be used on the full sized P2 2/3" cameras if a firewire card is fitted ?.
Shane Ross thanks for the Huge amount of knowledge you have written on the new P2 cams.
Cheers
Tom K
Downunder

Hi tallguy,
HVX200 is not the same as the SPX800, I suspect that pana in it's wisdom decided to not have this camera output files via Firewire to the mac, just AV stream only.
there is no "Device" in the settings, just
1394 TYPE
1394 Audio In
1394 Audio Out
1394 Speed
1394 IN CH
1394 OUT CH
1394 Control
1394 CMD SEL
1394 CONFIG
changing all or one make no difference to the out put, just AV, that's it.
I will investigate the USB connector on a windows box , or just get a P2 Store device.. documentation manuals assume to much and provide little.
Looks like SDI capture via my KONA LSe is the go.
Cheers for the Advice
Tom K
G5 Quad 2.5 & Dual 1.25 & G4 1Gig Mac OS X (10.4.8) Kona LSe Tb's of Storage & Ram Lots of mac stuff

Import via firewire no longer working

Hi,
I'm using iMovie 10.0.2, and trying to import from a Sony DCR-TRV320E camcorder over firewire into my late 2010 13" Macbook Pro under Mavericks. Everything is up to date software wise as of today.
This setup worked fine under Lion (I skipped mountain lion), and with the previous version of iMovie. I'd plug it in, go into import, and set it pulling in the contents of the tape - with no issues. It was really slick.
Trying it with my current setup, everything looks like it's working fine, i.e. I connect everything together, start the import, the camcorder starts up, video and audio show on my Macbook fine. When the import finishes though, theres no video file to be found anywhere. I've searched on the hard drive, and withing iMovie. I tried creating another user account on my Macbook and doing it from iMovie in there, and again, import starts, video and audio play, but when import finishes there's no movie file anywhere.
Help! Any ideas, pointers or troubleshooting steps would be gratefully revceived! It's frustrating the pants off me.

Yes, I'm having the same problem. Very frustrating!
https://discussions.apple.com/message/24650020#24650020
I started with iMovie 10, so I don't have an old iMovie 9 folder to go back to. I guess I'm just stuck waiting for 10.0.3...

Color Balance Issue importing from DV Deck Via Firewire...

The fact that searching google and this formum has lead to me finding NO results, I am wondering whether anyone has or is experiencing similar issues..
For some time now, I have been having this issue, which I just realized is not normal. I have a Sony DV Cam Deck which I use to import via Firewire to Premiere CS5.5. Attached to the Sony Deck I also have a small monitor connected to the composite video output.
The color and white balance look fine on the small monitor, however on the import via firewire, there is tinge through it almost like an incorrect white balance.
YES, I have calibrated and Re-Calibrated my Computer monitors using Spyder3 and when viewing photos and other video not imported through the deck, the color is great.. .It is NOT a problem with the Deck because the SAME thing happens with a friends Deck. I am just using the standard Firewire import on the ASUS Motherboard, although I do have a Blackmagic Studio2 card. This does not really come into it during firewire import....
As I said, now that I realized, this has been happening for 2 years or more. I was always color correcting the camera mans footage thinking his whitebalance was out, but after now attaching an external monitor to the Deck whilst firewire import, I notice the color is fine on the monitor. I am in PAL land Australia, but it happens with NTSC footage as well...
Anyone ever experienced this or know of this issue????
Any advice would be greatly appreciated...
Thanks Tony.

The footage is mainly from the same camera, although occasionally I edit two camera shoots so the other camera is a different model, but this also has a different colour balance after imported.. I have used two identical Sony decks, and my latest acquirsition is a Sony HDV Deck that will natuarally play both. I get the same results from all three decks.
Yes I have rendered footage with no correction or effects and watched it back on a Sony TV/Monitor. Colour is out.
I suppose the tinge looks exactly like an incorrect colour temperature setting, but i know it is correct because when I playback the deck directly into a TV through composite it is fine. Example Warm tone Beige Curtains in a Reception Center look like they have a bad green Cast. Skin tones are no where near natural, again a green cast. I am not sure what is going on..
But yes, it has been there for a couple of years and it just hit me like a tone of bricks after getting this new deck. On previous decks, I never had a monitor connected to the composite and only monitored through the firewire so I always assumed the colour white balance on the cameramans camera is out. WHen I set this deck up, I put a montior on the composite. Yesterday as I was importing source footage, I glanced over and it amazed me to see that the composite monitor on the deck had beautiful rich acurate colour on it, whilst what was coming in on the pc screen, even after playing it back on the TV/Monitor, was horrible.
So I thought, Hell all these years I have been spending hours colour correcting footage that was ok to start with but lost somting in the transfer?? HOW?? I haven't got a clue.. It really doesnt make sence and I am still trying different experiments. I am now going to import through the component and svideo outputs of the deck, to see what results I get... I will post that later.. Thank you all.

Problem importing video from a DV camera into the new imovie 10.0? I have a Sony DCR TRV17 connected via Firewire port that worked in 9.0.9 but not under 10.0...

I have a Sony DCR TRV17 that I used to pass through VCR tape video via Firewire port to my Mac Pro under Imovie 9.0.9 without an issue. Now under Imovie 10.0 the video shows in the import window, I can start recording yet when I stop recording the recorded clips do not show up anywhere. The movie file I'm creating still indicates that I still need to import video. Anyone having similar problems?

Hey Dave,
I had this issue only once before but was lucky enought to find it was a specific event causing the import to freeze. It took me some time to isolate the problem though. I would recommend letting it sit there for some time before you try any troubleshooting. Larger libraries can take long periods of time to update.
This is a good thread for this issue. I would first try removing the iMovie.plist as elikness mentions.
1. Open Finder
2. Click on "Go" in the menu bar.
3. Click on Go To Folder on the dropdown menu.
4. Type "~/Library/Preferences/" in the text field and click Go.
5. Find the com.apple.iMovie(some number).plist file and move it to Trash.
Quit and relaunch iMovie to see if this took care of the issue before attempting the next step. If you're still having an issue then you can try what I needed to do which is isolating the problem event.
1. Open Finder.
2. Go to the Movies folder. You should see iMovie Events here.
If you have a larger event library I'd recommend renaming the iMovie Events folder to say, "iMovie Events COPY". Then create a new empty folder named “iMovie Events”. When you launch iMovie 9.0.9 all events will be missing at this point. Quit iMovie if it is open. Then you can either drag each event from iMovie Events COPY to iMovie Events or you can select and drag several at a time. Each time you drag an event folder back into the new iMovie Events folder launch iMovie 9.0.9 to see if you are having the same issue. Wash and repeat until either you have found the problem event or you have imported all events.
If you find the problem event you can reimport the clip from iMovie 9.0.9 by going to File > Import > Movies and navigating to that events iMovie Original Movies folder to find the clip.
Hope this helps!

Import video via firewire not allowed by Face Time

I am trying to import video to my harddrive via firewire. Every time I open iMovie and click on the video camera icon the only device seen is the Face Time camera. There's a little drop down window but it only has Face Time as the option not my Sony DCR VX1000 video camera which is turned on to VCR mode to allow exporting of video content. Is there some way to get my camera recognized by the macbook or at least to disable Fact Time?

You might contact Sony for some technical assistance. In the past they have not been Mac friendly.
Ciao.

Video Importing Problems via Firewire

Hi there !
Few days ago, i've imported footage from my sony camera via Firewire connection in IMovie 09, It was my 1st time to capture videos in SNOW LEOPARD.
then i've captured videos in IMovie 09 using ISight,
and after capturing videos with ISight, i can't capture videos from any other Video camera via Firewire.
IMovie 09, or Adobe Premiere CS4 don't recognize/see/show Firewire connected Video Cameras, but ONLY ISIGHT !!!!!!!!!!!!! TOTAL NIGHTMARE !
Please guys fix this problem, it's such a shame that Snow Leopard has such an exception error,
are we going to have such strange problems like the WINDOWS VISTA users ??

Welcome to Discussions, Enslaved
If the cable idea does not fix your problem, see if you get any other ideas from these:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iMovie/8.0/en/9835.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iMovie/8.0/en/19544.html
EZ Jim
Mac Pro Quad Core (Early 2009) 2.93Ghz w/Mac OS X (10.6.2) MacBook Pro (13 inch, Mid 2009) 2.26GHz (10.6.2)
LED Cinema Display G4 PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11) iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9) External iSight

Simultaneous import of video via firewire and audio via in-line audio port

I have a converter that takes the S-video and audio input from my DVR then converts both to DV format, and then outputs via firewire. I hook the firewire up to my G5, open iMovieHD, and the application recognizes that as a camera and imports wonderfully.
Well, the audio comes through with a MAJOR buzz or hum. It's probably the converter, but the buzz/hum is not enjoyable.
So, I removed the audio from the converter, and the video converts wonderfully in iMovie without the audio. I have the audio coming in through my audio line-in.
I start to import my video, and iMovie starts recording the video. But I want to record the line-in audio at the same time. But when I switch to audio to turn on the input from the line-in, the video stops capturing.
When I start to capture audio first, then switch to capture video, then the audio stops capturing.
Is there any way that I can capture the video via firewire for one "track", and my line-in audio for the other "track", and have them play simultaneously in iMovie during capture??
Any help would be appreciated. thanks Adam

hey there badkitty 42,
i don't think you can do that. it sounds like your issue is electrical. try turning the plug around on each piece of gear in the chain & listen for the buzz. if it's not heard you've found the cause of your ground loop. you can also pick up some of the 3-prong orange or grey electrical adapters from Lowe's or Home Depot to see if you can "lift the ground" to get rid of the buzz. i'd try one on the convertor 1st. one last thing, do you have any flourescent lights in use on the same circuit or in proximity to where you're doing your transcoding? these are notorious for inducing 60Hz hum in audio & video gear.
good luck.

Importing from tape via firewire - event name created, but no content saved

I'm importing from my camcorder tape via firewire. Some recordings work just fine and I get the event into iMovie '09 v 8.0.5 (820) . Other events on the same tape don't import. When I import those events manually, an event name gets created in the event window, but there is no content in it. Any thoughts??
One confusing little addition - sometimes when those events are being imported and the scenes are bad quality (e.g., broken up a bit) they DO import. But when I rewind the tape and try to import them again with the picture coming in better, they DON'T work.

Are all your clips DV? Are some HDV?

Dead screen, transfering documents via firewire - need help

Greetings,
So I've got a 1 Ghz iMac (floating pivot screen.) - my primary mission critical workstation. My screen died today. Grrrr.
No time to muck about, I went out and purchased a mac mini (1.5 Ghz single intel core), I want to transfer all data from the old box to the new asap.
The migration assistant that appears at first boot up is cool, and I was able to move all applications. (handy!)
Problem is that I couldn't move all my user documents because the old Mac's drive is 80 gig and the new is only 60. So I figured I would just drag and drop as much as I can manually.
I've gone and reattached the old mac to the new via firewire and booted up the old box as an external drive. Problem is, when I open up the user folder on the old hard drive I'm not seeing any files.... ie. all folders including the old desktop folder are empty....its like the files are hidden or something.
Help please.

could it be because under ownership and permissions I have no access to these folders? Is that why the folders "appear" empty? - then my next question would be, how can I give myself access to them?
Remembering that I am unable to boot up and use the old iMac (except in external drive mode) since the screen (or video card???) is dead.
Also - I'm attempting spotlight searches from the new mac on the old mac's HD for known files on the old mac's desktop and its coming back with nothing...
What a mess ....maybe

Need converter - analog to digital via firewire

I'm looking to buy a converter to convert analog (VHS home movies) directly into iMovie via firewire. What are you using and have you had any problems? Thank you for your suggestions.

My Analog to DV passthrough settings memo:
1. Take the tape out of the camcorder
2. Connect the analog device's audio and video to the camcorder's minijack, use the S-Video jack for video if the output device supports S-Video
3. Put the camcorder into VTR-mode
4. Select A/V->DV out: ON, in VTR mode's menu choices
5. Disable the info display on the the camcorder by toggling its DISPLAY button
6. Put iMovie (or other DV application) to the Camera Mode
The analog image should now appear on the camcorder's screen as well as on the iMovie's screen.
Note that if you have a tape in the camcorder, you have to put the camcorder's VTR into REC mode (you may pause the tape) but this is not advisable because it produces wear to the tape.
* Note that the SCART which comes with the European nEUtered TRV320E camcorder is Out-only.
Is it possible to install iMovie 4 on an Intel iMac
I believe iMovie 4 works only on PPC Macs.

How to output from media encoder to camcorder via firewire?

I am using CS5.5 media encoder to output edited hi def footage from premiere as DV widescreen to sony FX 1 camcorder via firewire.
How do I route the output from media encoder to the firewire output?
This is the same camera I use for acqusition & import into premiere via firewire.
Media Encoder appears to be encoding the footage properly.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Sewerguy

How do I route the output from media encoder to the firewire output?
You don't--or can't, rather. You'd need to use Premiere Pro for this. Check this help page for details: Exporting to videotape

HT2518 Need to import files from PC. Not enough space on old PC to down load migration assistance.

First of all, please be patient with me as the Mac is new to me and I'm trying, but old PC habits die hard. Ok I can't download Migration Assistant on to my old PC as there is no room. Trust me, it won't do it. So I've got most of my files, music,etd. on an external hard drive and need to transfer to my Mac. I've plugged the USB cord in, got the icon under devices on Finder, but can't find a "select all" button/choice to move them. I can do the photos, (had to do them in small groups with highlighting and dragging - there must be a better way!) but can't get files to go. They are for the most part MS office/excel. Can someone help me?

Hi MtM,
I am sorry about your problems. The issues here are that FC does not use MPEG streams for editing video these are highly compressed formats which will look poor when compressed out again. However I have successfully downloaded video from Sony's DVD cam before. Its not as "quick" as plugging your cam in via Firewire, but it works.
You need a utility call DVDxDV I think it's $30 or so, or you can use another one called Handbrake which is shareware and works pretty well. Both of these utilities will allow you to import the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders from a DVD that is not copyprotected - such as like your camera's disc. Import the footage as DV streams and then import those in FC.
This is what I did, and it worked fine. The only problem you may have is getting the disc into your MB which is a slot-loading computer - you will need a disc ring that fits over the small DVD's to make it the size of a standard DVD - I forget what they're called... (Just be careful when doing that, make sure the disc doesn't fall apart in the drive...)
Or - if you can connect your camera to your MB via USB and see the contents of the disc, you'll be fine. Just tell DVDxDV "where" to find the VIDEO_TS folder.
Hope this helps.

Need to import via firewire on MBA?

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