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Level 1

8 points

iMovie and Canon ZR60

I am trying to help out a buddy in connecting a group of Canon zr60 camcorders up for his digital media studio at a local school. The camcorder worked fully with iMovie when they were initially purchased, but shortly after they stopped working. Canon has nothing to say to me since the camcorders are "not supported for downloading video on OSX." I cannot get iMovie 6 to recognize any of the camcorders. I have tried multiple firewire cables, multiple computers (eight different eMacs, one powerbook, and one iBook), multiple camcorders (different brands and models), and multiple versions of iMovie (4.0, 5.0, and 6.0). I have also tried using a DV converter box. In every single case the camcorder is not recognized. I have tried the GarageBand fix, resetting the camcorders to their factory settings, setting the camcorder to the exact time of the computers, rebooting with the camcorder on, resetting the computers to factory settings, repairing permissions, running disk fisrt aid, tech tools pro, and even analyzing the console messages as well. The console message seen is kernel[0]: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 31 built-in: no valid selfIDs for more than 2 minutes after bus reset, whenever I check to see if the camcorder or DV box is being seen in the system profiler. I think I have exhausted every possible idea that I can come up with. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Does anyone know of any other OS X compatible software that could extract the video from a firewire camcorder? If that exists, I simply can import the movie from there to iMovie. Are their GIMP drivers that anyone knows of either? I am loosing mind... HELP!

PowerBook 12" 1.33Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.8) 768mb RAM

Posted on Nov 5, 2006 1:20 PM

33 replies

walquis

Level 1

0 points

Mar 18, 2007 10:50 AM in response to Leshbob

Thanks Smtr, that one escaped me too, didn't recognize it as a switch, although it seems obvious now! I don't recall seeing it in the getting started guide.

Unfortunately, it didn't help.

Nothing shows up in the System Profiler under Hardware-->FireWire.

Smtr

Level 5

5,450 points

Mar 18, 2007 12:42 PM in response to walquis

If the camcorder doesn't show up in System Profiler, it means your Mac can't see the camcorder at all. So you can rule out iMovie as the cause of the problem for now. Try testing out your hardware: firewire cable, firewire port on the camcorder, firewire port on the Mac. Does the Mac have more than one port you can test?

That's the extent of my knowledge in this area. I'm sorry I can't be of more help.

Apr 8, 2007 6:41 PM in response to walquis

I'm assumimg that the ZR65 MC is THE ONLY accessory connected to your FW port on the MBP? Right? I know that those older Canon series minicams don't play well in sharing the same FW port with anything else, especially external HD's. If so it (iMovie) should recognize the camera. Is it possible to try your camera on another Mac. Since you just got a refurbished MBP, if there is an Apple store within reasonable distance, bring your camera and MBP there with the FW cable and have one of the techs look at it and try it on one of the Macs at the store and see what happens.

Bob

iMovie and Canon ZR60