HDR-FX1E incompatible with Firewire 800 and/or OSX 10.6?

[DavidFreedomRose]

The only icons visible in the Camera LCD are the timecode and the HDV1080i icons

[DavidFreedomRose]

Thanks you Doughie for the clarification on frames vs fields (which is what I suspected).

As for acgold7's suggestions & questions (thank you for taking an interest, by the way):

- I bought the camera new when it was first released by Sony a few years ago and I have never had a problem with it until now.

- I have changed VCR HDV/DV from Auto to HDV (still it is not recongised in the system profiler as a firewire device)

- I confirm that REC FORMAT is HDV, it does say HDV1080i in the LCD while shooting and playing back

- the blue HDV is lit up on the side of the cam

-
"... when connect the cam to the Mac, does the i.LINK icon light up in the cam's LCD?"
---> There has never been an iLink icon displayed on the camera's LCD display. This is normal. Such an icon is not listed in the Operating Manual's list of icons.

-
Does the HDV indicator change from IN to OUT?
---> When you say this, do you mean the HDV1080i indicator on the LCD screen?

- I don't see any point in taking a screen grab of FCP settings. It is my understanding that if OSX can't see the camera, then FCP won't be able to see it

- Resetting the camera does not change anything.

[acgold7]

Sorry, my mistake -- I haven't had my FX1s for a while and I was going by memory and what the newer cams do -- they have an icon in the LCD upper right, which says either HDVin or DVin when you are recording, but switches to HDVout or DVout when connected by FW and in VCR mode. I think the equivalent on your cam are the little lights on your FW jack housing, according to the Tip on Page 77 of your manual.

But as you've said, the cam is seen by older SW versions, so I'm guessing it's not the hardware at either end. So am I right in understanding that it used to work fine but stopped doing so when you updated the OS on your Mac? I think you're right in thinking that this is an OS issue, not necessarily FCP.

I can't get your screen grab to open; can you post it as a JPG or PNG? Really it sounds like you're doing everything right here; I'm just grabbing at straws.

Thanks,

[Stephan]

[Admin note] Sorry, I can't get TIFF images to display correctly for Windows users on this board. Somehow it seems to rely on the QuickTime browser plug-in, and there's no way I can fix that in any foreseeable short-term. Indeed best to post images as JPG or PNG. We'll then clean-up / delete the former TIFF attachment. Sorry again.

[acgold7]

I was able to get the graphic to display by using the Safari Browser that installed itself with my latest iTunes update (even though I'm on a Windows box).

David, what would still be helpful would be a look at your FX1's LCD while trying to capture. Doubt we'll see anything useful, based on what you wrote above, but as a last resort...

[DavidFreedomRose]

acgold7 Thank you so much for trying to help. I have recently upgraded my computer from a Powerbook G4 running OSX 10.4.11 to a quadcore iMac running OSX 10.6.4. The old setup captures fine in iMovie and FCP from my camera.

Please clarify now that you cannot confirm/verify personal experience of the HDR-FX1E capturing under OSX 10.6.4. I want to find out if there is a software conflict between the operating system itself and the camera firmware. It seems the hardware on both ends, and the cable, are all functioning properly.

Here's a JPG proof that the OS can't see the camera.

[acgold7]

Yeah, I'm not a Mac guy, so I have no personal experience with the FX1 and your OS. Last time I used one was in 2008 and everything went fine then, but I'm guessing this was a couple of OS generations ago.

Just spent some time searching around for this problem, and saw the same stuff you likely have: lots of questions but no answers. Some theories about multiple FW devices confusing the system, some about replacing the FW driver with an older one, some pointing at the linking of FW400 with 800 as the source of the problem, some suggestions to try "zapping the PRAM," whatever that is. But no definitive solutions.

Please let us know if you ever get it working; this is not an isolated problem and it'd be great to have a solution.

Have you confirmed that the FW port on the new Mac works with other FW400 and FW800 devices?

[DavidFreedomRose]

I just plugged my friend's Sony HVR-Z1E camcorder into the FireWire 800 port of my iMac using the Belkin cable and successfully captured HDV into iMovie.

I am convinced that the problem resides in communication problems between the Operating System and the Firmware in my camera. How much support I can get from Sony and Apple remains to be seen. Apple support staff think it is a problem with Sony's firmware, as their operating system operates fine with other FireWire devices, as I have just demonstrated.

I will keep you informed Adam, thank you again for your efforts.

[Bongoloid]

I've been trying to capture from a z1e for a couple of hours. I'm using the standard procedure we've used for years on our other 3 Mac/Fcp seats. I'm having the same problems outlined on this thread and I've just noticed that the HDV/DV link notification doesn't appear on the camera LCD when plugged into the new machine. It works on the other 3 machines. So it's a connection/compatibilty issue. I can't currently test the validity of the firewire 800 ports on the new machine but I think it's very unlikely that they're not functioning.

There are 4 firewire 400 6pins on the back of the monitor but none on the computer. The lead which connects the ports of the monitor to the computer only has fire wire 400. So all 400 is currently unavailable. Doh... sorry, that was a Mac hardware grumble slipped into the thread. Sorry.

erm... I can feel a grumpy phone call coming on.

[DavidFreedomRose]

Bongoloid - good luck. Please let us know how it turns out. I have still not heard back from Sony's online form request.