Mac won't recognize Camera

Hi I have the new Macbook 13-inch and I've been trying to upload video from my Mini-DV camcorder but the Macbook does not read it. I have a Panasonic GS59 camera with a USB plug, the camera came with a CD to install USB drivers and software onto Windows XP. When I open Garage Band it reads the DVC but can only pick up on the audio, iMovie does not read the camera at all. Is there anything I can do? I even went out and bought a firewire cable but I realized the 13-inch doesn't have a firewire port :/
I hope that I can figure out some way for it to work, it is my only Digital Video Camera, thanks.

try finding support drivers/programs for it on panasonics support website for macs.

I've looked but I can only find USB drivers for Windows, I guess I'll try again, know of any specific site?

i can't find it either. I will see and check out some website when I get back from school. There has to be something out there!

I really hope so, but now that I think about it, when I used my camera with my old windows computer, the quality never seemed to be very good at all, not as good as on the camera, I'm thinking now that this may have been because of the fact that I was using a usb and not firewire. I really hope this is not the case because I'm about to be a Film major and although I won't really use my laptop for school projects, I'll certainly need it for everything personal. I was also wondering maybe about a firewire - usb hub but I doubt that they make it cause that doesn't really make much sense since the slowness of usb is the problem in the first place. If anyone else has some suggestions please tell me.
Also today I uploaded video onto a school mac with my firewire cable and everything worked great so I know its not the camera or anything Ugghhh I hope this works out

if have always had better experiences with firewire over usb connections. I have never had any good or positive experiences with firewire/usb hub...it seemed to always connect/disconnect by itself for some reason. Have you tried giving customer service a buzz?

Is this an HD camera? If so, then yes you do need firewire. I have a Canon HD camcorder and it did a similar thing to what you said when connected via USB. The computer picked up pictures on the memory card, but did not pick up the actual video. When I got a firewire for it, everything worked out fine ( i have an iMac).

I hope this is not the case for your camera, but if it is, you've got a problem on your hands

No it actually isn't an HD, it's a mini-DV panasonic GS59 a few years old but still fairly new and working fine.

As far as I know, there are NO solutions for connecting miniDV tape cameras via the cameras USB port. It must be firewire, or some analog conversion box.

There are no USB to Firewire converters available either.

Apple did a VERY BAD thing when they dropped the firewire port from the new aluminum Macbooks! Everyone stuck with the problem should give Apple a big negative feedback.

uggggghh I feared someone might say that, does anyone know if a product like this Targus | ACC96US – Targus High-Speed File Transfer Cable would work? It looks like the right plug to go into my camera but I'm not exactly sure.

The point of that cable & software is to transfer data between computers. So, no, it won't work.

There are two pieces to the puzzle; hardware and software. The problem is actually the software side, as that doesn't exist on a Mac for video over USB of miniDV cameras.

What people do is use alternatives such as an Elgato TV Hybrid. Elgato just came out with a cheaper box without the TV tuner for $99 called Video Capture. There is also Blackmagic Video Recorder.

Neither of the above are perfect options because after bringing the video in via an analog to digital conversion, you end up converting it yet again to something iMovie can understand. Not to say it will be terrible, but the best option is digital all the way.

If you search the forums here for 'convert VHS digital' you should be able to find several discussions on this.

don't drop a bunch of cash to solve this easy issue. Unfortunately you're going to have to make a deal with the devil to fix this. If you're using 10.5, get yourself a copy of XP and install it then use it to retrieve the video from your camcorder. Alternatively if you don't want to reboot every time or if you have 10.4 or older, you could use Virtualbox to install XP. I have to do this when I want to make use of MKV2VOB as there is no good Mac equivelant to it.

Nooooooo! I cried a little after reading this last reply although it makes some sense. I have a terabyte external harddrive, could I install Vista on that? And how much does a copy of Vista actually cost? I actually am kinda likin' xstep's idea better, even though I don't have really any money right now; but if I were to use something like blackmagic, would the quality reduction be very noticeable? And would it be possible to ever upload HDV with the analog converter?
I'm sure the software I have is pre Vista but I guess it would work, although I was trying it out with my mom's Vista laptop and it doesn't seem to work yet. ugghh

Apple did a VERY BAD thing when they dropped the firewire port from the new aluminum Macbooks! Everyone stuck with the problem should give Apple a big negative feedback.

Click to expand...

You can say that again... I was sitting here last night thinking "hang on a sec"... I don't have a firewire port on my macbook pro and i'm a video editor... Yeah, that's real good isn't it...

You can get apple to put one in, can't you?

Eire said:

don't drop a bunch of cash to solve this easy issue.
... get yourself a copy of XP

Click to expand...

It costs more to buy a copy of Windows than buying one of the options I mentioned.

I wasn't allowed to install XP on an external drive from my MBP. It seems it needs to be installed on the internal drive.

I'm not sure what the reduction would be. I've had decent quality from VHS tapes.

I don't know of any analog to digital options that would allow for transferring HD content, at the consumer level at least. For HDV that would matter in your case, but other HD options which is usually AVCHD can be read natively over USB or via card readers for such media.

I use a 2 year old MacBook and a miniDV Panasonic GS15. I use a firewire cable to connect the camera to MacBook and make sure that the setting is on video play mode. I turn the camera power on and MacBook recognizes the camera.

Pettos said:

You can say that again... I was sitting here last night thinking "hang on a sec"... I don't have a firewire port on my macbook pro and i'm a video editor... Yeah, that's real good isn't it...

Click to expand...

Pardon my asking, but how old is your MBP? I have a late 2007 (Santa Rosa) MBP (MA895LL/A, 15.4", 2.2GHz C2D, etc., etc..) that has both one FW400 and one FW800 port... I use it to connect an external Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500GB eSATA/FW/USB HDD... and have never had issues...

On the camcorder front, I have a Panasonic HDC-SD9 (flash-based AVCHD) and have always been able to have iMovie, FCE4 and FCS 2 pick it up on powerup... also just bought a Canon HF10 for a screamin deal at $479 last night... DYING to shoot some footage and drop it for editing in any of the above... driving to Sedona and Flagstaff this weekend to shoot some footage that I'm going to score to and make a DVD for my 'folio... will post a URL with results for all when I can...

But back to the original ?... when did you buy your MBP that it doesn't have a FW port?

Cheers!

All Macbook Pros have FW.

Yeah I figured that was kind of the case which is kind of a relief actually, I do kind of like the idea of using the av out plugs on my dv camera to connect to an analog converter but, I'm kind of worried about the quality loss, I guess I don't have many other options but would the money be worth it? Film is a pretty high priority for me so I would rather pay the money then be left with nothing.