Video out to Canon HV20

Question

I am using an Imac 20" Intel with 2G Ram, a 500 GB Lacie External drive for my media and a Canon HV20 Camcorder for material.
I was able to capture my HD footage with no problem to FCE 4.0, edited my footage and created a DVD with IDVD with no problem. Want to delete the media and start a new project. However, I read somewhere that it is a good idea to save your completed sequence back to MiniDV to keep a backup of the highest quality video for use to create HD DVDs in the future.
This is where my problems start. As I said, I have no problem capturing but for whatever reason it will not record back to my camcorder (which based on the info in my Canon manual and a check with Cannon support) I am doing everything right on the camcorder end. Camera gives error when I start the recording process of "Check the HDV/DV input" and I don't see the footage on my camcorder.
I have tried Print to Video and recording via the timeline and neither will work. Spent 2 hours on phone with Technical support yesterday and then even went to the Apple store with some footage, my camera and my firewire cable only to be told that they could only help if I brought that and my computer and my external hard drive (and then they would only try to figure something out for 20 minutes)
I am sure there is some setting that is frustrating the camera but can't figure it out....any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Hi,
I had similar trouble and came accross your post. I have since got mine to work (see below).
What is the format of the sequence you are trying to export? Is it 1080i, 720p, or something else?
My workflow involved importing clips from the Canon HV20 using iMovie at the 540p import setting (960 x 540 pixels). I would then edit in FCE 4, and my sequence settings would adjust automatically to my clips, i.e. 540p. When I tried to "print to tape" FCE would begin to export and I would hit OK on the computer screen, but the camera would not start recording.
I did some troubleshooting. What I had to do was create a new sequence 1080i and then copy/paste my edits from the 540p sequence into the 1080i sequence (and correct some incorrect motion on still images, because the resolution of the sequences were different). Now, when I "print to tape" the 1080i sequence, FCE actually does a HDV transcoding step (which takes a while on my iMac) and then the Canon HV20 records the sequence no problem. Of course, when viewed on the Canon HV20 miniDV tape to my HDTV the quality is a bit less than the original because of the down sampling to 540p. But anyway, I have an archived copy of my work. I have also had successfull "print to tape", with the HDV transcoding, using a 720p sequence.
The Lesson Learned: Import at full 1080i, or 720p, and make sure sequences match your import settings. Otherwise, you will end up mucking around with a bunch of conversion issues.
If there is another way to get non-1080i material to print to the HV20?? I'd love to hear about it since I have a couple of other very complicated sequences in 540p. I will be buying a bigger external hard disk to go 100% 1080i in the future. Live and learn.
Hope this helped,
Mace