I don’t know if anyone here can help, but I’ll ask just in case…
I have a JVC camcorder, model GR-DVF21. I bought it nine or ten years ago. I can connect it to the firewire port of my iMac using the IEEE 1394 cable. But I can’t get the Mac software (iMovie) to recognize the camera. The System Profiler lists it on the firewire bus as an “unknown device”.
Is there any way to get my videos onto the computer? Or am I just up a creek?
I would check with apple and see if there is a driver for it. the other thing to check is soft ware that will let you grap video and save it on your computer. I know those are out there I see them all the time in office max and places like that. hope that helps.
Ray,
Check these instructions, could be one of the settings on the camcorder that needs to be activated.
A few things to check. First, close iMovie and launch iChat with the camera set to “record” mode to see if iChat recognizes it as a camera. If you’ve got an iSight camera on your iMac, it will likely default to that first. Click on the green camera icon to change to the firewire port. Once you click on that, you should be able to see the video that’s coming in from the camera in the preview window. If it sees the camera, you at least know it recognizes the fact that it is indeed a camera. Note: the Mac only lets one application at a time utilize the firewire connection, so you’ve got to close all programs that could potentially be using it before launching iChat. My wife’s iMac sometimes had trouble “letting go,” and I would have to restart the computer to clear the associations.
If iChat recognizes the camera, close iChat and launch iMovie, switching the camera from “record” mode to “play” mode. If it says “no camera attached,” then it may be an iMovie thing. If it notices there’s something attached, but doesn’t let you control it, it’s probably going to be a camera issue. Given the age of the camera (9 - 10 years) it may not allow remote playback. I don’t know how old the control protocol is. If you can play manually and have iMovie see what’s coming in, and iMovie lets you import that way, then you’re set. You may want to check with JVC to see if there’s a firmware update for the camera that might help.
If iChat does not recognize the camera, then something’s screwy with either the camera, the firewire cable, or the firewire port. The fact that the system profiler says “unknown device” leads me to believe it’s probably a camera firmware issue, but that’s just a guess. My system profiler shows mine as a Panasonic whatever the model is. My first troubleshooting would be to borrow a friend’s or neighbor’s miniDV camera to see if it recognizes that. If it does, then it’s definitely a camera thing. If not, it’s probably internal to the Mac (or a similarly ancient camera). Also, if you’ve got a firewire hard drive or such, you can plug that in to see if the computer recognizes what it is.
One other option I’d consider is an A/V interface box. This lets you bring in video from non-firewire sources such as Hi8, DVD, VHS, etc. The one I saw the other day had a firewire input as well. I don’t know if it’s a USB or firewire interface between the box and the computer; I’d imagine it’s a firewire because you need that kind of speed to import video. I don’t think you have remote control going through that box, but you can hit “play” on the camera and then “import” on iMovie.
Search Apple’s support forums, too. They’ve got one dedicated to iMovie issues. I’ve generally been able to find answers to most of my questions on those forums after digging a bit.
Later,
K
iThink these iApples are iCool, but iT seems to iMe that what should be iSimple usually tuns out to be iPainful 
After going round and round on this in the Apple Support forum, and not getting any help at all from JVC, it looks like my best option is to take the camera to my brother and let him import the video onto his PC. He’s used this camera before so we know he won’t have any trouble with it. Then he can just put the video on a disk for me and I can take it from there.
Sure is something wrong with the world when I have to go to a Windoze machine to get something done!
Ray Dunakin said:
After going round and round on this in the Apple Support forum, and not getting any help at all from JVC, it looks like my best option is to take the camera to my brother and let him import the video onto his PC. He's used this camera before so we know he won't have any trouble with it. Then he can just put the video on a disk for me and I can take it from there.Sure is something wrong with the world when I have to go to a Windoze machine to get something done!
Geoff George said:I was just told the other day on a support forum that Windows 2000 is now at "End of Life" :(
long live my windows 2000. :)
Hi Ray
We may have the same model of JVC camera (I need to find it) and we are on a Mac. My wife has downloaded movies onto the Macs at school and she also did a little tinkering. You may have tried this but she discovered that if you turn on the JVC camera first and then turn on iMovie it worked just fine. Just a thought.
Thanks for the suggestion Doug, but I’ve tried every different startup sequence I could, no luck.
This evening I borrowed a different brand camcorder from a neighbor. It’s a Sharp VL-WD255. With this camera I had no trouble at all importing the video! So the problem is with my camera. I’ve noticed a lot of folks posted about similar problems with JVC cameras in the Apple support forum.
Anyway, I’m now working on getting all my old videos transferred.
Ray
Just borrow his camera and down load them to the apple!
Just a thought.
Sean