Sony Mini-DV (DCR-HC14E) Via Firewire

Same issue - different model but doesn't "come up" on my Mac anywhere that I can find. Hoping someone here can point us in the right direction...

Are you hooked up to AC power? Battery power not likely to work since you use a 6 pin to 4 pin firewire cable to connect. The two pins you lose are the power.

Excellent suggestion and nope, was not hooked up.

That said, didn't seem to make a difference for me. System still "blind" to the camera.

I have a Sony HDR-UX7 and iMovie '08

Hello Sarah,

Give this a try. Get the free download of iMovie 06, if you don't already have it, and try connecting to iMovie 06. Seems anyone who posts here with problems connecting a miniDV cam are usually using iMovie 08.

Forest

Welcome to iMovie Discussions ..and to the Mac!

The TRV14E should be perfectly compatible, as long as you've got a fault-free 4-pin-to-6-pin FireWire cable, and the FireWire ports on the laptop and the camera are working properly.

Sometimes the computer and camera need to understand which one's giving, and which one's receiving, the FireWire commands.

Scroll halfway down this page of Dan's to "Sony camcorder special fixes" and try the "Video Edit" trick to 'kick' the camera and computer into proper communication.

If FireWire ports didn't seem to be communication, Lennart's old trick - though I don't know if this works with MacBook Pro laptops - was to shut down the computer completely, remove power cables (..and on a laptop, I s'pose, remove the battery..) and leave for 15 minutes, Apple says that this should reset the FireWire port(s). (On reconnecting, of course, you'd probably have to reset the Time and Date, as these may have been lost.)

If that doesn't help, it's just possible that the FW port on the camera may be ill, but then again, if it worked with your Windows laptop, it must be OK.

Try a different FW cable? (..Connection has never worked for me with a 6-pin-to-6-pin cable which has a 4-pin adaptor on the end. It must be a proper 4-to-6-pin cable..) ..The camera, of course, must be set to 'VCR' mode, not to 'Camera' mode..

Has any of this helped?

Just to state the obvious, but since I haven't seen it mentioned yet on this thread...

You need to launch iMovie 08 before turning on your camera.
iPhoto will launch itself when the Mac detects a camera. iMovie will not.

A couple of years ago someone posted a similar problem elsewhere, but there seems to be no record of how that was solved ..and, of course, all the people who DON'T have problems have no reason to post a message about whatever it was they did to make it simply just work.

(Note that you may not be able to play DV out of your Mac and back INTO the HC14E, as I think it was one of those European camcorders which was DV-OUT only, to keep the price down ..not that iMovie '08 has a facility for exporting straight back to a camcorder, although iMovie HD 6 (and previous versions) does have that facility.)

As for getting video out of the camera and into iMovie, you might like to see if any video comes out of the camera and down the FW cable and into iChat A/V ..that works on PowerPC Macs, but I haven't tried it with an Intel Mac like yours, or one which has a built-in iSight camera (as distinct from an external FW iSight camera).

Have you tried it with a different MacBook, to try to isolate whether it's the camera, the cable or the Mac..? Do other Sony cameras import OK..? If you're near Currys, try taking back the cable and exchanging it for another one, etc..

"..also found a USB stream option. It is currently switched to on but I should think this shouldn't make any difference?.."

I should think that it WOULD! Turn it off this minute! ..The camera's trying to send its signal out through the USB connection!

With it turned OFF, now try again via FireWire..

You can launch System Profiler and click on Firewire to see if your camera is detected.

You can find System Profiler in the Applications/Utilities folder on your Mac.

..Then it seems to be a camera problem.

I'd disconnect the camera's battery - though this may lose the date and time, which would afterwards need to be reset when you re-attach the battery, to allow proper importing of any material shot after this - and then leave the camera sitting for 15 or 30 mins, to see if removing all power will reset its FireWire ("i.Link") port.

Then re-attach the battery and reset the date and time,.

Go through the menus (..I don't have a 14, so I don't know exactly what the menus show ..ah, but, of course, I can download one here..) ..and I see that the instruction book says (page 105):

"..(3) Press FN to display PAGE1.
(4) Press MENU to display the menu.
(5) Select VIDEO EDIT in , then press
EXEC (p. 133)."

..which is pretty much what's described on Dan's page.

So I'd set the camcorder to 'Player' mode, make sure that 'i.Link' is selected, turn OFF the Infra-Red (IR) control, connect the camera to your Mac via FireWire (i.Link), open iMovie, then do those menu settings (above), and see if the camera is then recognised.

If you haven't got the instruction manual to hand, I suggest downloading it from that link, above.

Red-faced but fessing up....

Clicked on iMovie 08
Turned on Camera
Up pops so heretofore unseen but perfectly obvious prompts: DVD or Memory Stick
Touch DVD and away we go.

So total PEBCAK

Oy!

Apologies and thanks...