Mac Firewire/Camcorder Failures

I was wondering if any of the rest of you are having problems with using the firewire interface on a Macintosh Computer. I have nine Panasonic DVC7 camcorders and now only one will connect with the computer. I've had them in for repair and talked with the regional rep for Panasonic, and he tells me that they are seeing this problem with OSX 10.3 and higher. He says if you hook up the camera "hot" it will actually burn a small hole in the circuit board of the camera. We've tried having the computer on and the camera off and then having both off when the connection is made but we still get repeated failures. Panasonic has been very responsive and helpful in trying to trouble shoot this problem, but it is nearly impossible to talk with anyone at Apple other than the low level tech support people who don't have a clue about engineering or design. Prior to the problems with the DVC7, we also experienced the same problems with the Canon ZR series. Further, we've had the DV interface burn out in two JVC decks. We are currently using Canopus converters to import and export the data from either the analog RCA jacks on the camcorders or on the back of the JVC decks. Any thoughts?

thats a very odd problem. I work with pretty much all the same cameras you do and we have only had to send in the jvc decks. I have never experianced any problems with the firewire jack on the panasonics or the any of the ZR's (and sadly enough my school has just about everyone of them)