Panasonic Camcorder not working

Do you have the cam set on playback mode - not PC?

Do you have iMovie open? Are you using AC power?

Sandy,

I also have a Panasonic cam, a GS500. I am not familiar with your cam's controls, but when I say "set on playback", I mean set the cam to the setting you would use if you were reviewing your video on the cam itself. Yours should work the same. I never need to use AC power when capturing, but you do need to ensure a good battery charge to run the cam for each hour of video tape.

Here's my routine, which should work for you. If it doesn't, you may have either a bad firewire cable, or one of the ports (cam or computer) could be defective.

Cam is off, computer is on.
Connect firewire cable to both.
Open iMovie, then turn on cam (set on playback)
Imovie should recognize cam and offer you the import button.

Forest

I am having exactly the same problem with my Panasonic.

I read on a forum elsewhere that there is a bug with Leopard and as a result some camcorders do not work as described by Apple.

If anyone has managed to work out how to fix this, I would love to know.

Andrew

Hello Andrew,

That bug thing may be true, as it seems the posters experiencing problems with their miniDV's are all running Leopard. Make sure you have downloaded all the latest updates to Leopard before looking for further answers.

Forest

I have solved my problem!

Sandy, I am not sure if you are experiencing the same problem, but I found I was using the wrong cable!

I was using a DV to USB cable to download from my Panasonic camcorder, however this is the wrong cable. You need to use a DV to Firewire cable. It is called an IEEE1394 Firewire 6 pin to 4 pin cable.

This cable does not come with the camcorder, and you need to buy this as an extra option. Once I bought the correct cable, it worked fine for me! I would suggest taking in your Mac and your camcorder to a store and see if the cable works for you as the cables can be quite expensive.

Do a google search on IEEE1394 Firewire for a picture of what the cable looks like.

I hope this helps!

Andrew

Sandy, It sounds as if you've plugged in a USB cable (..which gives access to the card which has photos on it..) instead of a 4-pin-to-6-pin FireWire/DV/i.Link cable ..which gives access to the video on the tape. (The FireWire cable probably did NOT come with the camera, and you may need to buy one.)

The ends of a USB cable, for feeding photos into your Mac, look like this:



The ends of the necessary 4-pin-to-6-pin FireWire (..also known as DV or i.Link..) cable for feeding video into your Mac look like this:



The big end goes in your Mac, and the small end plugs into the 'DV' socket of your camcorder.

Wouldn't it be nice if people would READ the ****** manuals!