Panasonic NV-GS120 question

I was hoping somebody might be able to solve some issues I have with my GS120.
In a nutshell what I am trying to do is download the movies I have made on my GS120 onto my MBP and edit it with imovie.
Firstly the software that came with the product is for the windows operating system latest being XP. I have not been able to find any drivers for the Mac OS X (10.5.7). Is that going to be an issue or will imovie be able to import the video regardless? This leads me to my other problem being that my MBP has firwire 800. The GS120 has a 4 pin firewire outlet just next to the s-video and I was wondering if anybody knows if there is such a thing as a 4pin fierwire connection that goes into the firewire 800 connection in the MBP and if there is such a thing will imovie be able to communicate with the GS120 regardless of the driver software?
Thanks in advance.

yes there are adapters and cords that will take the 800-400. Go to a camera store and they can help you. My sister in law just did this and brought the camera with her because apparently one cord didn't work.
Sheryl

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Transfer of mini-DV tapes from Panasonic NV-GS120 to MacBook Pro via FireWire port (9-pin)

I am new to Mac and love it. I would like to transfer my old mini-DV tapes from Panasonic NV-GS120 to my MacBook Pro via FireWire port (9-pin), but am not sure which port to use on the video camera. Reading from the top on the Panasonic video camera there are three options: a "mini-usb" port, a "remote/mic (plug in power)" [not likely] and finally a "A/V out phones" jack entry [which I use for viewing the tapes on the TV screen via the jack cable ending up in a red, yellow and white cable to plug into TV.
I have read Bengt Wärleby's excellent instructions and am ready to buy the FireWire cable (9-pin in one end - Mac), but I am not sure if it is the mini-usb or jack-stick exit of the video camera. Or, indeed, if there is talk about an external A/V box needed to decode and transfer the digital tapes to iMovie on the Mac.
Any clarification is highly appreciated. Thanks for all suggestions.
JLens

The port you're looking for is the DV Port (in your manual it's marked as control component #55). I looked up your camera and it does have it. That's the port where the firewire should fit. Hope to have helped you.

Used to be able to import from Panasonic NV-GS120(DV), but now can't

Hi,
I have been able to import from our Panasonic NV-GS120 (DV) camera numerous times before using Imovie. However, now Imovie detects the camera, but when I go to push the "play" button to start the import process, the computer hangs. I have no idea as to why all of a sudden it doesn't want to work!
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Hi
Test another FW-Cable.
Test Your Camera on another Mac so that DV-in still works OK
Toogle in iMovie pref: Play-back via Camera (on<->off some times)
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 Exchange formatted - USB/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange WILL NOT DO)
(Should be a FireWire one - USB/USB2 performs badly)
FireWire - Sure not using the accompany USB-Cable but bought a 4-pin to 6-pin FW one ?
Using WHAT ? :
• Mac OS - X.5.4 ?
• QuickTime version ? (This is the heart in both iMovie and FinalCut)
• iMovie 8 (7.1.?) ?
Free space on internal (start-up) hard disk ? (Others don't count)
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 eg recording and playback to TV)
Delete iMovie pref file may help sometimes. I rather start a new account, log into
this and have a re-try.
from LKN 1935:
Hi Bengt W, I tried it all, but nothing worked. Your answer has been helpfull 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..?
Yours Bengt W

How to import with Panasonic PV-GS120? (Or similar model...)

Hello
My brother just got his first Mac, and was very excited to use the new iMovie with his Panasonic PV-GS120 DV camera. However, he has had some trouble importing video with it -- consistently getting a "Communication Error."
We got it to import one time, by just switching settings (from PC mode to PlayBack while, and it suddenly worked). But it didn't seem to recognize when first in either mode.
Can anyone tell us the "correct" way to import with this camera in iMovie?
What mode should it be in? When should it be plugged in, etc.
Any tips are appreciated. They will help a new Mac user get the most out of his machine.
Thanks.
Matthew Marshall

The camera should be set to playback mode, and you have to use a FireWire cable. iMovie will import the DV footage from the camera in realtime.

Bonjour, J'ai un panasonic nv-GS120 qui n'est pas reconnu dans adobe premiere éléments pour capturer la vidéo. Pouvez-vous m'indiquer comment résoudre ce problème. Merci bcp

Bonjour, J'ai un panasonic nv-GS120 qui n'est pas reconnu dans adobe premiere éléments pour capturer la vidéo. Pouvez-vous m'indiquer comment résoudre ce problème. Merci bcp

Version 13 no longer captures from a tape camera
http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-elements/kb/removed-features-formats-elements.html
I have NOT used either, but many say to try these for SD capture http://windv.mourek.cz/ or http://www.exsate.com/products/dvcapture/
$20 DV and HDV for Mac Firewire capture http://www.lifeflix.com/
http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/kb/cant-capture-dv-hdv-video.html
-and more about Windows http://forums.adobe.com/message/4708997
I have NOT used it, but many say to try this for HDV capture
-archived at http://www.videohelp.com/tools/HDVSplit
-Click the 1st link under "Download sites:" for the latest version

FCE + Panasonic PV GS120 = bad frame drops and unusable video

Hi All,
Here's my scenario: I have a macMini Core 2 Duo 2Ghz w/2gb RAM on it plus a an external drive which I am using as the scratch disk.
I'm using FireWire to connect my camcorder to FCE and I have no problems recognizing the camcorder, since the application comes up fine. It is when I capture the video itself - I will get about 2-5 seconds of video and it will drop the connection. I turned off the of the "Frame Rate" notice so that I can keep capturing without interruptions, but that doesn't to seem to do anything. The video that I do capture, is choppier than someone doing the robot at 33rpms and the audio doesn't sync up either.
Any ideas?
I've read all of the posts regarding the GS120 in question and the two suggestions that I may try is reinstalling Quicktime and changing the path of my scratch disk to the local drive. I will repost if that works, otherwise any other suggestions any of you reading this may have will really help. I have no idea what to do now, other than maybe buying a new camera, which I don't really have the budget for.
Thanks

so would it be safe to say, that if I change my scratch disk to the local drive, and not the usb drive, this problem could be corrected?
Yes. That should work OK. If it doesn't there's a gremlin hiding somewhere.
Most likely, as Tom suggests, it's the USB drive changing.
FYI: I've used Panasonic cameras with FCE for years with no trouble. So I seriously doubt you have to get another camera.
Al

Panasonic NV GS120

I recently bought a MacBook and am wondering, seeing as there no firewire input, the best way/ways to get my mini dv files in to the laptop to edit in Imovie? So fare all I've come up with is capture on my windows based pc as an mpeg then import to mac then convert to an mpeg format that mac reads and then open but the quality is not very good. Lots of blur that makes you feel quite sick after a while. The miniDV quality out it excellent and my old burning on windows was good so I don't think it's the film. I could capture as and AVI but AVI files seem like they would be huge. Can I connect the camera to the macbook using the USB? Issue there is that I think it's only designed for stills transfer or webcam. Is there software that will capture the video on my windows pc in a mac compatible format from the get go? Very open to suggestions,
thanks,
M

Welcome to iMovie Discussions.
But, erm; "I'm trying to mix this oil and water (chalk and cheese) and they just won't go together.."
miniDV needs FireWire; the new MacBook doesn't have FireWire. You can't import from miniDV without some compromise if you have no FW. Sorry.
"..Can I connect the camera to the macbook using the USB?.." ..No. It's like you can't get electricity out of the water pipe. miniDV needs FireWire ..it won't come out of the USB pipe.
It's a long time since I've tried miniDV capture on a PC (..around 1999, I think..) so I'm a little rusty. But if you import DV into a Windows-based editor (..I seem to remember something called 'Studio DV' or various Pinnacle programs..) you may then be able to transfer those files to a Mac. Dunno, haven't tried, sorry. Someone else probably knows better.
Other devices, such as some versions of the plug-in EyeTV of one sort or another, can accept composite video in from your Panasonic, and will produce files which you can handle within iMovie. But that's converted and downgraded DV, without the sharpness of the original.
So, with a new MacBook and no FireWire, your best policy is probably now to get a USB-connected AVCHD camcorder for future use, and to make compromises when importing your existing miniDV tapes.

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Hello,
I am planning on buying the Panasonic TC-L42U12 this next month. Anyone from here has any experience or feedback on this TV?
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Any feedback (good or bad) will be HIGHLY appreciated.
Thanks!!

I would check out Cnet.com for reviews and BestBuy.com for reviews as well.

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I filmed a few events in the last couple of days, came back to capture, and FCP is having an "unknown error" while trying to log and transfer the longer clips. One is 7 minutes, one is 12 minutes, and one is 36 minutes. It just will not transfer them, though the rest transferred fine. Any thoughts?

Found the problem. My external hard drive is my scratch drive. It comes out of the box in a MS-DOS FAT32 format which I had noticed was had a file limit on it. AVCHD files are small on the camera, but extremely large when transferred into FCP and converted using Apple ProRes 422. 6 minutes of AVCHD formatted 1080 24p footage came out to a 4.31 GB file once captured. My hard drive was limiting a file that big from being placed on the hard drive.
Just a heads up. Make sure your drive is not FAT32 when you are looking to edit large clips. I am waiting on the exact format, but I am assuming I will need to buy a new drive and format it with MAC OS Journal before using it as a scratch disk...

Mac Pro and Panasonic DV

Have just got a Mac Pro (and am also new to Macs). I have a two year old Panasonic NV-GS15 digital video camera attached via firewire, I can't pick up the camera at all...in i-movie, Final Cut Pro (5.1) or even see it when looking under the firewire port. Have been on Panasonic website and the driver information I found was related to PC/Windows. Have emailed Panasonic but they aren't replying.
Any suggestions/answers/wishes of luck?
Mac Pro Mac OS X (10.4.7) 2 x 2.66 Dual Core Intel Xeon, 2GB 667 MHz

I have same problem with Mac Pro and Panasonic PV-GS120. I went to Apple store and tried Mac Pros over there and they all had the problem. PowerBooks (G4 and Intel) as well as iMacs can all see the camcoder fine and iMovie imports clips without problems. System Profiler does not show any FireWire devices once the camcoder is attached Mac Pro and /var/log/system.log reports that FireWire has been reset multiple times in the last minute. I've filled in the form to escalate issue to Apple but I have no idea when the issues is going to be addressed.
Mac Pro Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Best way to handle audio out of sync?

I've got a Panasonic PV-GS120.
Easy Setup is set to:
- DV Panasonic DVCPRO
- DV-NTSC 32kHz FireWire Basic
After doing some digging, it appears the properties on my captured video show an audio rate of 32000.3. Whereas my sequence shows 32kHz even. Couple of questions:
1) Can I stop this from happening?
2) Here's what I did to "fix" it, but I don't know if it's best or if this will even work when I start adding multiple captured clips (could be quite a pain to do it with each clip).
I used the slip tool to offset the audio to +3. That put my video at a -3. I then selected Modify > Mark in Sync to get them aligned.
So all looks great, but dreading the thought of doing this every time, for every clip. As I understand it, this only applies to the timeline portion and not the actual clip as represented in the bin. Meaning, I can't do it just one time. I would have to do it every time I add a portion to the timeline. Ugh.
So in summary:
1) How can I stop this from happening?
2) Am I handling it in the most efficient way (if I can't prevent it from happening?)
Thanks.

Well, albeit very coincidental, it appears that the problem is actually with my camera. I say coincidental because this just started happening at the same time I bought FCE and started using it. But, I am able to now record a segment (2 minutes or so), play it back through the camera, and choppy audio will start to emerge. I have changed audio settings and even used a couple new tapes, but it is still occurring. So, time to get a new recorder, it would appear.
I'm not too upset though because I learned a lot more about FCE and video capture settings through the process. thanks for everyone's help!

Quicktime capture stuck @ 16:9, but need 4:3... changing crashes PP

Sorry, again, for asking another noob question:
I'm trying to capture from my dv camera (a panasonic nv-gs120... not the greatest, but all I have).
It's not an HD camera, and the capture aspect ratio is supposed to be 4:3.
I've found two places to change the aspect ratio in Premiere Pro.
The first is when you're creating a new project and set Capture settings... but when I click the "Video" button in the Capture section, PP crashes and disappears.
The second is in the actual capture dialog within an existing project, and it's basically the same as the new project dialog... but again, when I click the "Video" button, PP crashes.
It seems such a simple thing to do, but I'm not having any love.
The only available capture types listed are "HDV" and "Quicktime."
I haven't tried "HDV," since I don't have an HD camera, so quicktime seems correct.
Perhaps there's a way to set this underneath the covers (a prefs file, or an xml files or something)? Clearly, changing it via the PP dialog isn't getting anywhere, but my captures are all stretched which is pretty useless (unless there's a way to convert them).
I've resorted to capturing via iMovie, as it gets the aspect ratio correct because it just rips a dv stream (.dv).
I suppose this is alright, since I can then import into PP, and it seems to work.
Is there a major difference between .dv and .mov? Am I losing/gaining anything doing it this way?
I could also boot to the windows side and capture via Premiere Pro 2, which I have over there. It captures avi files, but they seem to work as well when imported into CS4 on Mac.
Any ideas? Thoughts?
Should I just capture .dv with iMovie and live with it?
That's fine, if that's how it is.
Thanks,
- zevo

This is actually quite strange (and starting to be a little annoying):
Capture Compression Settings:
DV/DVPRO NTSC - 16:9
- Output: 720x480 (1.2121)
- Expected: 720x480 (1.2121)
DV/DVPRO NTSC - 4:3
- Output: 720x480 (1.2121)
- Expected: 720x480 (0.9091)
It will not change to 4:3, regardless of whether you select 4:3 or 16:9... it simply doesn't do anything.
And, of course, everything's stretched, since I have a non-hd camera. I burned to DVD hoping it was just a Premiere view or something, but it's not.
I tried a few other capture compression settings:
None: This got the correct (0.9091) ratio, but of course the file was MASSIVE... 20+GB for about 10 minutes. No scene detect.
MPEG4: Also got the correct ratio, but dropped a bunch of frames while capturing. No scene detect.
h.264: Also got the correct ratio, but still no scene detect.
Given that at this point my primary focus is getting about 70 hours of home videos into the machine, I'd really prefer scene detect to work, and that only works so far with DV/DVPRO NTSC, but then of course the aspect ratio is a show stopper on that path.
I tried upgrading to the latest version of Quicktime (7.6), but it didn't change anything.
I've looked all over the quicktime preferences, and can't find related settings there.
I successfully imported .dv files, so that seems to work so far. I haven't tried anything past importing and dragging to a sequence, so I'm crossing my fingers that effects/transitions/edits/encore dynamic link all work.
We'll see. Didn't expect it to be so much work (I spent last week trying to get past startup crashes due to VST plugins). It wasn't nearly this much work when I was using Premiere Pro 1.5/2.0 on Windows a few years ago. No crashes or aspect ratio issues or anything.
Glad I upgraded from my Encore license so I can still switch over to the Windows bootcamp side and capture there. Seems an odd thing to have to do, but I'm mostly wanting to get these videos going, not troubleshoot.
Ahh... software.
I love it.
Thanks again,
- zevo

How do you import 16:9 without distortion??

.. it's time to get into that widescreen stuff..
I've seen this question on my German board, I don't own a 16:9 recording device, so probably, the experts on this board could help me to solve the puzzle..
camera in use: Panasonic NV-GS120
trying to import recordings in iM08 and iMHD6 .. notice the aspect ratio distortion in the import-dialog of iM08 (final imports are distorted too.. ):
iMHD6 imports correctly ('letterboxing' switched-off), iM08 does not handle those recordings..
anybody can give me advice...?

+No, my question has not been answered ...+
.. but I have to mark it 'solved' to get rid of it from my list of Questions ..

Imovie freezes when camera connects or it doesnt connect at all.

I know you guys always get these questions so T.I.A for and answers I get. So my camera is a Panasonic PV-gs120. It randomly connects to imovie and when it does and i try to import video or control my camera through imovie I get the pinwheel of death. Sometimes it will connect then say " Camera off or disconnected". I have deleted the preferences and repaired permissions several times. I have a feeling though that the problem lies within my camera. It actually worked flawlessly for maybe a week and has not worked since. Every other camera i have tried workes first try no problem... Same model, i tried a vx and some others with no problems.
Any ideas?

I have the exact same problem on my Mac Pro. It seems to be something with this model camera. I spent about a week researching this. I found other posts on the net with this problem. It works fine on my G5 and my Mac Book Pro, but not my Mac Pro. Front Firewire ports don't work at all, back work for a sec or two or not at all. G5 and Mac Book Pro are fine. I even went and got a new firewire pci-x card and nothing. I'd love to hear if anyone know about this, but for some reason it just seems a lost cause on the Mac Pro. It used to work with Tiger, I have a few hours of footage I captured using the rear ports, but in Leopard, I get jack. I installed Tiger on another drive to test it out, still nothing.
Jeff

IMovie '08 keeps crashing while importing.

It keeps saying that it quit unexpectedly. It usually happens somewhere around 13 minutes. I have plenty of space on the hard drive. I'm importing from a Panasonic PV-GS120 mini-DV camcorder. Can someone help?

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Panasonic NV-GS120 question

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