Cannot capture from Sony DCR-HC36

Question

Level 1

0 points

Cannot capture from Sony DCR-HC36

hello, i'm having dificulties capturing from my camcorder. I have a sony DCR-HC36 connected via firewire to my White Macbook C2D. I am running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.2 and using FCE 4.0. I have used before this camcorder with FCP 4.5 and imovie and it worked perfect. Now, I connect it, try to capture and it says "Unable to initialize video deck. You may still use Capture Now." I hace run the "Easy Setup" many times trying with diferent formats and uses. My camcorder is PAL. I would really appreciate some help, thanks!

Macbook Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on May 12, 2008 12:49 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,805 points

May 12, 2008 5:37 PM in response to AdlT

First of all trash your preferences.

http://www.fcpbook.com/Misc1.html

Do not go switching randomly between settings for capture. There is only one correct setting for your media and your camera. I don't know what settings are on your media, but it's going to need to use some setting of DV PAL, either 48K or 32K, either anamorphic or not.

What other devices are connected to the computer? Is the camera turned on in VCR before the application is launched? If yes, when the application is launched, does it recognize the camera? If not, do not proceed further. Check system profiler to se if it recognizes the camera. Check the cable.

Reply

Answer 2

AdlT Author

Level 1

0 points

May 14, 2008 7:13 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Thanks Tom for the help, but it is still not working. It is really weird because, on the camcorder screen it says it is connected, but in system profiler the camcorder doesn't appear. Can it be Leopard, maybe a compatibility problem? or maybe the Intel Video Card?

Reply

Answer 3

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,805 points

May 14, 2008 7:31 PM in response to AdlT

If it's not recognized in system profiler I'd suspect a cable or a bad port or some other hardware issue. Make sure the camera is set to output DV.

Reply