Why won't MiniDV camcorder pass signal through to external firewire drive?

[KeepItSimple]

Hello I've been using my Canon ZR65mc MiniDV camcorder and iMovie to pass the signal back and forth from my VCR/DVD Recorder and Power Mac G4 using the firewire 400 connection.

It works great as long as I don't have my new LaCie Firewire 800 bus-powered external hard drive connected. If the camcorder is connected and turned on the external drive won't mount. On the other hand if the external drive is being used and I turn on the camcorder the spinning beach ball appears in iMovie and stays until I either turn off the camcorder or unmount and unplug the external hard drive. It's not good enough to unmount the drive, I have to unplug it too.

Does the Firewire 800 part have anything to do with it or is it not possible to send juice from one firewire port back through to the other port? I'm really hoping to do it since my internal hard drive isn't big enough for my video projects.
Thanks.

[tomlee59]

It's possible that you simply don't have enough juice for that bad boy. Look up the specs for your camcorder, and verify whether or not it can supply enough power for that external device. If your camcorder is like mine, the answer is no, not by a long shot. You'll likely need an external power source for that external drive.

[KeepItSimple]

Interesting. Apple support has an article about firewire/Canon minidv camera issues.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA26556?viewlocale=en_US

So much for my great analog-to-digital setup, and it drops frames too!

Any suggestions on how to get video back and forth from the vcr/dvd recorder to the mac?
Maybe Sony or Panasonic minidv camcorders work with other firewire devices (and don't drop frames), or one of those capture devices, or is there an audio/s-video card with inputs/output I could install?
Thanks.

[terryj]

Any suggestions on how to get video back and forth from the vcr/dvd recorder to the mac?
Thanks.

My setup:

Magnavox DVD Recorder plugged in via S-VHS / Analog Audio to a Canopus ADVC-100 capture box,
then Firewire 400 4 pin to firewire 400 6 pin to my Mac.

works like a breeze in iMovie, FCP, and Toast 8.

You could also try an Canopus ADVC-50, for the budget conscious.

[Frobozz]

I'm not convinced you need anything more than an external power source for the Firewire 800 drive. What you describe is consistent with what happens with bus-powered drives when there is inadequate power available.

[rumplestiltskin]

Doesn't the FW drive have an external power port? If so, it's probably 5v. Get a wall wart and plug it in.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Having FireWire devices such as disk drives sharing a bus with a DV camcorder can create problems. Each device wants to be the bus controller and sometimes there can be a stalemate.

Does your drive have a USB2.0 option? If so, use that and leave the FireWire free for the camcorder.

[rumplestiltskin]

Having FireWire devices such as disk drives sharing a bus with a DV camcorder can create problems. Each device wants to be the bus controller and sometimes there can be a stalemate.

Does your drive have a USB2.0 option? If so, use that and leave the FireWire free for the camcorder.

The "two devices on the bus" thing isn't an issue. Rather, trying to move DV-Stream from the FW bus on the drive into the computer and then back through the bus in the FW drive out to the camcorder is a possible bandwidth issue. However, do try adding the power adapter to the FW drive as, based upon the original complaint, a power problem is what is being described.

JohnnyMalaria's point about the USB2 option is a reasonable solution as you move half the bandwidth to another bus entirely.

[JohnnyMalaria]

One other factor to consider is that the speed of the bus is determined by the slowest device on it. Some DV camcorders have a 100Mbps FireWire interface. Connecting such to a FireWire bus will cause 800Mbps devices to run at 100Mbps.

[terryj]

One other factor to consider is that the speed of the bus is determined by the slowest device on it. Some DV camcorders have a 100Mbps FireWire interface. Connecting such to a FireWire bus will cause 800Mbps devices to run at 100Mbps.

thus insuring dropped frames as listed in the original Apple article.

[KeepItSimple]

Thanks to y'all for the responses.
Yesterday I had a lot more success hooking up my older Canon ZR-40 Mini-DV camcorder than I did the newer ZR-65MC, which is curious since this article http://support.apple.com/kb/TA26556?viewlocale=en_US says the ZR40/45/50's are the ones with the issues. I'm finding the opposite.

My external bus powered firewire 800 drive DOES work with the ZR-40 connected (which I just found out yesterday) and works great to record iMovie footage back to the DVD Recorder. The external can't keep up, though, when importing to iMovie and the iMovie screen often goes blue for about a second and then comes back losing footage. No problems if I import to the hard drive.

I'm not convinced you need anything more than an external power source for the Firewire 800 drive. What you describe is consistent with what happens with bus-powered drives when there is inadequate power available.

My external drive is a LaCie Rugged and has no a/c external power source. It does has a USB power cable to draw more power from an available USB port if needed but I thought that was for laptops. I'm using a PowerMac.

Having FireWire devices such as disk drives sharing a bus with a DV camcorder can create problems. Each device wants to be the bus controller and sometimes there can be a stalemate.
Does your drive have a USB2.0 option? If so, use that and leave the FireWire free for the camcorder.

Yep stalemate is the word for it alright! It's strange that one camcorder does that while another similar vintage device of the same brand works properly.
No USB 2 on my powermac fw800, just the usb 1 it came with, along with the 80GB hard drive, which is why I got an external.

One other factor to consider is that the speed of the bus is determined by the slowest device on it. Some DV camcorders have a 100Mbps FireWire interface. Connecting such to a FireWire bus will cause 800Mbps devices to run at 100Mbps.

I have no idea how many Mbps the Canon camcorders have. The Canon website gives specs but nothing about that. I'd be curious to find out.

Magnavox DVD Recorder plugged in via S-VHS / Analog Audio to a Canopus ADVC-100 capture box, then Firewire 400 4 pin to firewire 400 6 pin to my Mac. works like a breeze in iMovie, FCP, and Toast 8.

Sounds great! If I had it to do over I would have gotten one of those Canopus devices to convert my VHS tapes. I was trying to save $$ by using my available camcorder and it's gotten the job done but not without hassles.

[rumplestiltskin]

DV-Stream results in a file about 15GB for each 60 minutes. That's about 4.3MBps or about 34mbps. (Please check my math.)

[JohnnyMalaria]

Many DV cams use FireWire interfaces with different speeds, e.g., 100, 200 and 400. If one uses 100Mbps, it forces other devices - such as the hard drive - to run at 100Mbps. That's barely three times the bandwidth of the DV stream.