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iMovie does not recognize DV to Macbook Pro

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Hi everyone,

I'm attempting to download digital video from my JVC camcorder (GR-D290U) to my macbook pro via a monoprice firewire. For some reason, iMovie does not recognize my camcorder. The trainer at the Apple Store also had great difficulty trouble-shooting. After many tries and ruling just about everything out (computer okay, firewire okay, camcorder okay), we finally got the macbook to recognize the camcorder and it worked fine. He said it just took awhile for no logical reason. Of course when I got home, it didn't recognize the camcorder again!

Does anyone know if there is a "special trick" to get the macbook to recognize the camcorder (maybe a special sequence of events to follow, or something?)

One additional bit of info: he used a different firewire cable, it didn't work. He used the different cable on a different macbook, it didn't work. He tried again, it did work. Then he tried my cable, it worked. Very quirky. Sorry for the long post, this has been very frustrating.

Thanks!
 
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in iMovie, there is a preference setting for 'Disable VTR' do that and it won't try to find a timecode...

in doing this you may experience dropped frames or out of sync audio... but it works!
 
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kingjon53

You said dropped frames and out of sync audio, would this just be on the downloading of the film or would it be on the final file
 
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KingJon53, where is that preference in iMovie. I couldn't find it in either 09 or HD.

Casper69, if you drop frames during the import, that will affect the output. Ditto for time sync issues.

I'd plug the camera in, set it to playback mode, turn it on, then go into System Profiler and look under the Firewire option to see when the camera appears. Use refresh until you see it. Perhaps for some reason it is just taking time to create a connection. Only after it appears, start up iMovie to see if it can now find it.
 
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Unfortunately, the camera doesn't appear and that's the problem. We got it to appear one time, but not since.

Before I try it, what does "disable VTR" do?

Thanks,
Darrin
 
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VTR = Video Tape Recorder

Review the DV connection instructions in the manual on page 45. Read it carefully.
 
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xstep,

Not sure where you found the JVC manual, but thanks. My original is misplaced and I wasn't able to locate on online without paying for it! I will follow the instructions on page 45 and see if it works.
 
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I used Google to find the manual. When I think I might find what I'm looking for at the manufacturer site, I preface the search with site specifier like this;

site:jvc.com JVC camcorder GR-D290U manual

In this case I got a link to a PDF so I opened it up to see if that was what I was looking for.
 
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Still not working. Not sure what to do next. I think I'll try to borrow the firewire cable from the Apple store to see if that works.
 
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Out of curiosity, what version of OS X are you using?
 
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I was using Leopard and have since upgraded to Snow Leopard, OS X 10.6.1. Do you think the OS would make a difference with this problem?
 
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If it was working with Leopard, but not working with Snow Leopard, then, yes, I have to wonder if the change to SL is the cause.
 
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same same only different....

I've just tried connecting my Cannon HDD video cam to my macbook pro to load some stuff into iMovie and it won't see it. This is only happened since I upgraded to Snow Leopard. Same goes for my girlfriends Mac, it used to recognise the same camera no problem, but since the SL upgrade, neither of us can import movies off the cam.

Anyone heard any answers on this problem?
 
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LukeJames, the OP had a problem with a firewire connected camera. I've been seeing posts specific to this lately.

The other day I did clean installs and upgrades to Snow Leopard 10.6 and connected my miniDV firewire camera. Fortunately for me it worked although when booting of a firewire drive with another second firewire drive connected, my system effectively froze. This didn't happen when I booted off of a USB drive alternative.

As I mentioned above, the first thing to check is the connection to the OS. Connect and turn on the camera, open System Profiler in the Utilities folder, look in the Hardware section under USB or Firewire depending on your connection, of which only one should ever be connected at one time.
 
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Same problem here

I have been unable to get 27-inch iMac running Snow Leopard to recognize Canon ZR800, connecting through 4-to-9 Firewire 800 cable.

Camera worked perfectly on previous G5 running OS 10.4 an Firewire 400.
 
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Through much trial and error, the issue turned out to be a faulty dv port on the camcorder. I borrowed a friend's miniDV camcorder and uploaded the video to imovie.

However, once in imovie it seemed to take awhile to burn to DVD.
 
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When creating a DVD, the content needs to be converted to MPEG2. This process takes quite a while. If using iDVD, the process is done in that application.
 

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