HDV Camcorder not recognized in FCPX/iMovie/Quicktime in Monterey (12.3)

On yesterday's Monterey update, hdv tape camera still not recognized in iMovie. I am on a M1 Mac Mini and in December I transferred some hdv tapes from my Sony Z1 in iMovie and I was so impressed by how it was so easy and the quality of it was so good. My model of camera is not in the list anymore, in fact, there is not any tape camera of any brand listed on Apple’s list of compatible cameras, to my knowledge when I last checked.

This is not the first time that this problem appeared according to my readings on internet.

I will try to go back to Big Sur on a ssd external with a partition for it.

It seems to be the only solution until Apple reversed its doing in Monterey.

I have search many option to find a card recorder that I could use instead of tapes on my hdv camera, but there does not seem to be any anymore?

I tried to install Big Sur on a separate partition and it did not worked. I guess I created a new partition on my disk but I started importing Big Sur on the original partition and after importing ( more than 8 hours ), ending up telling me that I could not install an older OS on top of Monterey, I cannot even find the file that I was uploading.

My mistake was I restore with my oldest backup on top of my original system, there is still nothing on the second partition that I created. I have to find a way of installing my first back up from time machine on the new partition.

I am on a M1 Mac Mini 2020.

Thanks. I have been using Time Machine since I bought the M1 mini but at the beginning I kept messing the disk I was using , you see, I was used to the wheel of time machine turning and it was not doing so, I kept disconnecting and it took me to come to this forum to find out how to see the progress of a backup. I do not have a backup dating to big sur. So I thought I could upload it from the app store but it did and then refused to install it on top of Monterey and here I am.

I guess I will have to load my hdv tapes through my old mac pro or my old 17 in mac book pro and then transfer the files to my mini.

I have made a separate partition on my disk and I cannot find the way to upload into that partition a copy of Big Sur available on the app store. There is noting on the partition right now. I read everything I could find and spent many hours on that and I am getting discouraged. Thanks for your following and giving me advice, I appreciate it very much.

The process should be as follows:- Open the Big Sur installer on your normal Monterey Mac and when given the option to install, select the new partition as the destination. Do not try to put the installer on the new partition. . . . it needs to be on Monterey in order to work.

You are not trying to install over Monterey but on the new partition so your Mac will end up with 2 separate Operating Systems on 2 partitions (volumes)..

Thank you. I wish I could have had the chance to do that. We have a slow internet connection, so it took a whole night to upload the file from the Apple app store and when I came in front of my screen, there was a message saying that Big Sur could not be open on a more recent OS (Monterey) and to top that the file was not there anymore, thank you very much for Apple efficient system.

I concluded that I would have had to erase the actual OS but then I would be left with an inoperable computer to try and get Big Sur uploaded again or with another computer.

So the ball is in the court of Apple to put back compatibility with video tape system.

The problem is the same for all those working with any video editing software, may be it will put some pressure on Apple to re-establish that compatibility. From what I read, it was not the first time it happened in the story of operating OS.

Thank you very much for answering and suggesting, it is all noted. I appreciate it very much, at least I am not alone.

To follow up ….

I have an old mac pro tower (2009 , 2 quad core processors) and I connected in the network with my M1 mini and I am using I Movie on the mac pro and importing my tapes directly to an extra ssd disc running on the mini.

It works and at least the sequences are already directly accessible to I Movie on the mini where I finish the packaging to be save on hard disk and dvd.

I will have to do the same with SP u-matic tapes where I collected souvenirs and film transfers before I went to HDV .

I still hope that Apple will revise Monterey so we can still work with tape format and tape caméras.

Thanks to everyone who suggested ways to deal with this and lets keep the pressure on Apple for a resolution of this.

Unless it is something easy to accomplish it will probably never happen.

Apple is a behemoth and Mac computers represent only a small part of the organisation.

The number of Final Cut Pro users is only a tiny percentage of all Mac owners and finally, the number of FCP editors still using tape is an even smaller percentage and dwindling.

So Apple really has no incentive to revert to features which it considers should be consigned to the past.

It's rather like a Ford T owner asking Ford to make parts for its century old defunct product.

Just to add a bit of detail to my rather general comments . . . currently 70% of Apple's revenue comes from iPhone and iWatch etc. sales. Services account for nearly 16%. iPads are under 6%

Macs are just over 8% . . . if they stopped making computers today it would be no great loss to them.

I agree, we do not represent much in the balance of things, but I do not think that giving that support for tape cameras represented so much space in the os.

we will see. I fond a way to deal around it but it is not perfect.

Thank you all of you on this forum. I appreciated your inputs and will keep reading.

I work with Final cut studio and I Movie and I am happy.

I don't think there is an update. 12.3.1 has been around for a few days so I don't think that can be it.

This morning when I switched on my computer there were several emails which I glanced at and at least one said there had been an update (overnight?) that cured the problem.

I didn't check it and deleted the emails.

Since then I visited all the threads about Monterey FireWire problems but have not been able to find the information contained in the emails so it is a big mystery to me.

I am wondering whether someone posted the statement and later removed it which would account for how I received the email but could no longer find the information on the Apple Support Communities.

Thank you for all your information, it’s truly appreciated et helpful. Searching the internet on his topic is not easy because there’s only a handful of users still working with DV tapes.

And I haven’t come up with a general consensus, seems to be working for some users et the other half have the same problem as we do, so I’m really not sure what’s going on.

That’s pretty much what I was thinking, when I saw the 12.3.1 update had been around for a few days already.

Do you know if there is a way of notifying Apple or giving a feedback (even though there’s very little chance it will get addressed by Apple) ? Would be good just to have an official answer.

I spoke to Apple’s iMovie support and macOS support team on the phone yesterday. iMovie has divided to discontinue DV tape capturing and since macOS format moved to 64bit systems, the compatibility with DV camcorders was not taken into account. They told me the best is to keep my old MacBook as interface for capturing my tapes and then transfer the files.

There are lots of cheap video converters like this on the market.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rybozen-Grabber-Capture-Digitize-Converter-BR116/dp/B0776QZKPP/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=2Z4UM9XUW2S1W&keywords=video+converter&qid=1649751751&sprefix=video+converter%2Caps%2C99&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&smid=A1K5F7NW9ZVQFG&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUE3NTFTUENQVEpBV1EmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA1MTg3ODgzT1kySlEwS0QwVkxVJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA2NzE4NDgxMTBCNElLMTlJUElHJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

I have no idea how good they are but if you are desperate they may be worth risking a few quid.

I am wondering how long I should wait for Apple to fix this issue with their OS and firewire/camcorders before I move on to a plan b. How do we know that this wasn't an intentional decision and not a bug? Has anyone within this community had experiences with Apple responding to niche problems such as this?

Thanks!