Optura 20 and iMovie 10.0.6---camera doesn't mount

Question

My daughter recorded a video for her class and needs to edit it. I have used my Optura 20 and successfully transferred video to the iMac but not in the last few years.
Currently running Yosemite and iMovie 10.0.6 on a mid-2011 iMac.
When I plug the camera directly into the firewire port, iMovie does not see it. When I go to "system information" and look at the Firewire bus, I see the warning "Unable to list FireWire devices." When I remove the camera and plug in my firewire HD, it appears quite nicely in System information; when I plug the camera into the drive to "daisy-chain" the system info reverts to "unable to list" and the hard drive disappears from my desktop.
This is using the (only) Firewire cable I have for the camera, which is 9 pin to 3 pin.
I went to my ancient mac mini (running OS 10.4) but that ancient beast has only a 6 pin outlet on the back.
Before I run out and try to find a 6--->3 cable, does anyone have any insight? Does this camera never work on a modern mac with a modern OS? Is the problem I am having likely to also show up on the Ancient Mini? My fallback position is to go to a camera store and have the miniDV converted to a digital file (and I would like to do this the old-fashioned way if at all possible).
Any thoughts?

Answer 1

Hi
NO CAMERA or A/D-box
Cable
Are You sure that You are using the FireWire Cable - USB-Cable will not work for miniDV tape Cameras FireWire - Sure not using the accompany USB-Cable but bought a 4-pin to 6-pin (or 9-pin) FW one ?
Test another FW-Cable very often the problem maker.
Camera
Test Your Camera on another Mac so that DV-in still works OK
Toggle in iMovie pref. Play-back via Camera (on <-> off some times)
Some Cameras has a Menu where You must select DV-out to get it to work
Camera connected to "charger" (mains adaptor) - not just on battery
Camera set in Playback mode - NOT Recording mode
Does Your Camera work on another Mac ?
Sorry to say it is to easy to turn the 6-pin end of the FW-cable 180 deg wrong.
This is lethal to the A/D-chip in the Camera = needs an expensive repair.
(Hard to find out - else than import/export to another Mac ceased to work
everything else is OK e.g. recording and playback to TV)
A/D-box
Is the dip-switches set right ?
Set to same standard as recorded/editing e.g. NTSC 29.97fps or PAL 25fps
Try resetting it
Connections
Daisy Chaining most often doesn’t work (some unique cases - it’s the only way that work (some Canon Cameras ?))
Try to avoid connecting Camera <--> external HD <--> Mac but import directly to the Mac then move
the Movie project to dedicated external hard disk.
FireWire-port - Can be re-setted by - Turn off Mac and disconnecting Mac from Mains/Power for 20-30 minutes
External device’s (hard disk’s)
Should be FireWire as USB/USB2 performs badly and so does Airport or Net-work connected ones too.
MUST BE - Mac OS Extended formatted - UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange - DO NOT WORK for video due to 4Gb barrier.
Mac
Free space on internal (start-up) hard disk ? Please specify the amount of free space.
(Other hard disks don't count)
I go for a minimum of 25Gb free space for 4x3 SD Video - and my guess is 5 times more for 16x9 HD ones after material is imported and edited.
GarageBands fix - Close iMovie, Open GarageBand, Play some notes, Close GB and iMove can now be OK
Does Your Mac have a FireWire Port
White MacBooks - don't
MacBook-Air - don't
if not then a few Mac’s has a PCM-CIA slot and there are FW-Cards that makes a FW-port this way
if Thunderbolt - use a Thunderbolt to FireWire adaptor.
else - NO SOLUTION
Only option as I get it is either
Use another Mac to Capture material (to an external USB2 - Mac OS Extended formatted hard disk - or -
Change to another Camera that can be used with Your Mac (no there are no miniDV tape Cameras that can)
If Your Mac-Book has a PCM-CIA Card place - then there are FW-port-Cards and then
You can import via this - but I've not seen this on more modern Macs. My PowerBook G4
has one and this FW-Card-port works greatly.
SoftWare
Delete iMovie pref. file may help sometimes. I rather start a new account, log into this and have a re-try.
Any strange Plug-ins into QuickTime as Perian etc ? Remove and try again.
FileVault is off ? (hopefully)
Screen Saver - OFF
Energy Saver - OFF
Using WHAT versions ? .
Mac OS - X.5.4 ?
QuickTime version ? (This is the heart in both iMovie and FinalCut)
iMovie’08 (7.1.?), 09 or 11 ?
iMovie HD 6 (6.0.4/3) ?
Other ways to import Your miniDV tape
Use another Camera. There where tape play-back stations from SONY
but they costed about 2-4 times a normal miniDV Camera.
If Your Camera works on another Mac. Make an iMovie movie project here and move it
over to Your Mac via an external hard disk.
(HAS TO BE   Mac OS Extended   formatted - USB/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange WILL NOT DO)
(Should be a FireWire one - USB/USB2 performs badly)
from LKN 1935.
Hi Bengt W, I tried it all, but nothing worked. Your answer has been helpful insofar as all the different trials led to the conclusion that there was something wrong with my iMovie software. I therefore threw everything away and reinstalled iMovie from the HD. After that the exportation of DV videos (there has not been any problem with HDV videos) to my Sony camcorders worked properly as it did before. Thank you. LKN 1935
from Karsten.
in addition to Bengt's excellent '9 yards of advice' ..
camera set to 'Play' , not rec/computer/etc.?
camera not on battery, but power-line?
did your Mac 'recognize' this camera before...?
a technical check.
connect camera, on, playback, fw-connected...
click on the Blue Apple, upper left of your screen ..
choose 'About . . / More . .
under Firewire.. what do you read . . ?
More
FileVault - Secure that it’s turned off
Network storage - DOESN’T WORK
Where did You store/capture/import Your project ?
External USB hard disk = Bad Choice / FireWire = Good
If so it has to be Mac OS Extended formatted
----> UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange is NOT Working for VIDEO !
mbolander
Thanks for all your suggestions. What I learned is that I had a software problem. I had something called "Nikon Transfer" on my Mac that was recognizing my Canon camcorder as a still camera and was preventing iMovie from working properly. After un-installing Nikon Transfer and doing a reboot, everything worked great.
I never liked the Nikon Transfer software anyway--I guess I'll get a cheap card reader and use that to transfer photos in the future.
No Camera or bad import
USB hard disk
Network storage
File Vault is on
jiggaman15dg wrote
if you have adobe cs3 or 4 and have the adobe bridge on close that
or no firewire will work
see if that helps
DJ1249 wrote
The problem was the external backup hard drive that is connected, you need to disconnect the external drive before the mac can see the video camera.
MaryBoog wrote
Maybe your problems is solved in the meantime, but for all others this might help as I had the same problem, also have the Sony HDR-HC7, but the 7e (Europe, PAL). I found this link today and it works perfectly
//support.sony-europe.com/tutorials/dime/videotransfer/vtransfer.aspx site=odw_en_GB&sec=DVH&m=HDR-HC7E
What I exactly did.- put camera in play mode - open guide - choose connection guide - choose comp./printer (where to transfer movie to) - select connection.- i-link (on my camera) but equal to firewire - OK - choose HDV - choose NO for conversion of i.link.
Settings are shown then (VCR HDV/DV.- HDV and i.link-conv..- OFF), press OK, OK, END.
Switch camera off. Connect firewire cable to camera & Mac. Switch camera on, in play/edit mode.
Open i-movie, choose import from camera. On screen below the camera connection is shown.- DV (HDV). Now you can import, automatically or manually.
  This worked perfectly for me. Took me 2 days to find out. Could not find any clear thread explaining what I had to do on the camera and the manual was not clear either. 
  Yours Bengt W