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Has anyone succeeded in connecting a firewire 400 mini-dv camcorder to a Mac via a Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter and a 9-pin to 4-pin cable?

I tried connecting first a Canon XL-1 and later a Canon Optura 60 to my 27-inch iMac using a Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter and a Rockfish Firewire 800 9-pin to 4-pin cable. The computer recognized the Thunderbolt adapter, but did not see either camera. Apple Support has told me that this should work in theory, but since there are two conversions taking place (firewire 400 to firewire 800 to Thunderbolt) it may or may not work in practice and will be device dependent.


I get the impression from some discussions I have read that this may have been done with some cameras (Sony?). I am going to try a different brand 9-pin to 4-pin cable, but I do not see why this should make any difference.


Can anyone tell me of a successful connection of a similar camcorder? Any suggestions of other things to try?

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

Posted on May 4, 2013 10:30 AM

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Posted on May 4, 2013 2:20 PM

In what manner does the Mac not "see" your camcorders? If you are expecting the cameras to appear on your desktop, they will not; FW cameras never have. The only place you will see evidence of a FW camcorder connected is in System Information (Lion, Mt. Lion), System Profiler, or applications that support FW camcorders.


If the connection is working, iMovie, Final Cut and QuickTime should recognize the cameras when they are connected and turned on. Have you tried one or more of these apps with your cameras?


A few notes, FYI

  • There is no actual conversion between FW400 and FW800. The 4pin/6pin/9pin adapters merely connect the correct wires to each other (the data lines are actually identical in FW400 and FW800, this why you can interconnect 4pin, 6pin and 9pin firewire cables).
  • The Apple Thunderbolt-Firewire adapter was primarily designed to connect external hard drives. There is circuitry in each end of the adapter that converts Thunderbolt to Firewire and I have always suspected there are some limitations in the FireWire implementation in this adapter.
  • Canon camcorders are also notorious for their limited FireWire implementation; the combination of the Thunderbolt-Firewire adapter + Canon's FW implementation may be the cause of the problem.
  • Having multiple FW devices connected at the same time as your camcorder (daisy chained or otherwise) will cause problems with your Mac recognizing the camcorder. FW cameras often try to take control of the FW bus (a behavior which is not actually permitted in the FW spec) and when there are other devices (such as a hard drive) connected at the same time, the result is often that either the camcorder is not recognized or the system hangs. This has been especially problematic with Canon camcorders over the years.
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Question marked as Best reply

May 4, 2013 2:20 PM in response to richj61

In what manner does the Mac not "see" your camcorders? If you are expecting the cameras to appear on your desktop, they will not; FW cameras never have. The only place you will see evidence of a FW camcorder connected is in System Information (Lion, Mt. Lion), System Profiler, or applications that support FW camcorders.


If the connection is working, iMovie, Final Cut and QuickTime should recognize the cameras when they are connected and turned on. Have you tried one or more of these apps with your cameras?


A few notes, FYI

  • There is no actual conversion between FW400 and FW800. The 4pin/6pin/9pin adapters merely connect the correct wires to each other (the data lines are actually identical in FW400 and FW800, this why you can interconnect 4pin, 6pin and 9pin firewire cables).
  • The Apple Thunderbolt-Firewire adapter was primarily designed to connect external hard drives. There is circuitry in each end of the adapter that converts Thunderbolt to Firewire and I have always suspected there are some limitations in the FireWire implementation in this adapter.
  • Canon camcorders are also notorious for their limited FireWire implementation; the combination of the Thunderbolt-Firewire adapter + Canon's FW implementation may be the cause of the problem.
  • Having multiple FW devices connected at the same time as your camcorder (daisy chained or otherwise) will cause problems with your Mac recognizing the camcorder. FW cameras often try to take control of the FW bus (a behavior which is not actually permitted in the FW spec) and when there are other devices (such as a hard drive) connected at the same time, the result is often that either the camcorder is not recognized or the system hangs. This has been especially problematic with Canon camcorders over the years.

May 5, 2013 8:12 PM in response to MartinR

Thank you, Martin for a lot of useful information.


My computer did not recognize the camera in the Mt. Lion System Information, in iMovie, or in Final Cut.


However, when I replaced the Rockfish 800 9-pin to 4-pin cable with a similar cable made by SIIG, everything worked. I don't know whether the Rockfish cable was defective or if there is some difference between the function of the two brands. I don't understand how there could be a difference, but I do recall that in my searches through the discussion groups someone else mentioned a problem solved by replacing a Rockish cable. That is why I tried it.


I appreciate your notes about Firewire. The external hard drive I use for Time Machine has both USB and Firewire 800 connections. I have been using USB because I did not initially have the Thunderbolt adapter. Before I read your note, I was considering switching to the FW connection and daisy chaining the camcorder. It now seems that would not be a good idea.

Aug 27, 2013 2:23 PM in response to richj61

I can confirm this as well. I originally tried a Rocketfish 9-pin to 4-pin firewire cable with no luck. I tried both a Canon ZR30MC miniDV as well as another Panasonic camera into iMovie'11 on a newer iMac. Neither camera worked -- no connectivity at all. After much frustration I ran across this message and decided to give the SIIG cable a shot. The cable arrived today and worked perfectly. I plugged it in and iMovie immediately recognized it and imported the tape perfectly. I'll be taking the Rocketfish cable back to Bestbuy.


SIIG 9PIN To 4PIN Firewire 800 Cable

Brand Name: SIIG

Model: CB-894011-S2

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VEOIDK/

Has anyone succeeded in connecting a firewire 400 mini-dv camcorder to a Mac via a Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter and a 9-pin to 4-pin cable?

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