P2 card not mounting over firewire on Mac OS X

[ashr]

Hi all, I'm a long time lurker on these forums. The company I work for just bought me an HVX202 2 days back so I'll be posting regularly from now on :) This sure is a nice site you guys have here.

Anyway, We're very pleased with the purchase so far. There's a pretty noticeable difference between HVX footage and that of our previous camera, the DVX102. I'm from India so the cameras are PAL.

The only problem I'm having so far is when I try to connect the HVX to the iMac through Firewire with the camera set to PC mode. I don't see the P2 card mounting up on the desktop. I'd say I'm quite tech savvy so I do know about the required drivers and stuff : all installed.

The problem is not with the 16gb P2 card as it gets recognized by the camera and I can shoot fine with it. There's no issue with the firewire port or cable either as the computer recognizes the camera and I can capture MiniDV tapes fine. Finally, the OS itself does not have any trouble with detecting the P2 card. Like I said, the drivers are installed but here is the really weird thing. Almost everything I've read on this site about connecting the camera to a Mac for mounting P2 cards talks about using Firewire and NOT USB 2. However, when I connect my camera to my Mac over USB, the card mounts fine. I can drag clips to the hard disk or capture through Log and Transfer in FCP. Host Mode from Camera to Hard Disk works through Firewire as well.

While I can live with this for the time being, I've read that USB transfer does not even work on Macs and is strictly Windows only. What I'm experiencing says otherwise. Would anyone know if I would have any trouble using USB on the Mac instead of Firewire? I'm aware that USB 2 doesn't have the practical performance of Firewire but for now, I just can't get my P2 card to mount through FW. I might have missed something. Has anyone experienced anything similar to this?

I'm sorry if the post is rather long but I just wanted to mention all the details. To summarize:

1. Firmware version on Camera is the latest. Drivers for the Mac are the latest ones off the Panny website.
2. P2 card is recognized by Camera and Mac when connecting over USB.
3. Host Mode : Direct transfer from Camera to Firewire Hard Disk works.
4. No trouble with firewire cables or the port itself. The camera is recognized and MiniDV tape capture is possible.
5. The only thing NOT working is the mounting of the P2 card on the desktop when connecting the camera over Firewire.
6. Other Firewire Hard disks are recognized by the Mac as well.
7. iMac 2.16 Intel Core 2 Duo with 2 gigs of RAM running Mac OS X 10.4.10. Camera is PAL version.

When I connect the camera to the Mac using Firewire, I get 1394 disconnect on the camera LCD. When i connect using USB, i get USB disconnect for a second which changes to USB connect and the card is mounted on the desktop.

Thanks in advance. Hope someone can shed some light on this.

[Barry_Green]

I've read that USB transfer does not even work on Macs and is strictly Windows only
Not exactly. The manual states that USB is not guaranteed to work on a Mac, whereas it is guaranteed to work on Windows. And firewire device mode is not guaranteed to work on Windows, but it is guaranteed to work on Macs.

Only other suggestion I have for you is to remember to switch to the 1394 DEVICE mode in the PC MODE menu item...

[ashr]

Yes of course. I did that. No luck. In fact, the panasonic tech support guy came over here yesterday and we tried to solve the problem together but he didn't have an answer either. He's asked me to give him a couple of days to figure this out. I wanted to check if other people were having this issue but it doesn't seem to be the case.

Oh btw, since I've just signed up here, I'd like to thank you for all the information you've covered with your posts on this site. They've helped me loads with my DVX in the past.

[Barry_Green]

Glad to have helped so far, but I'm not sure I can help on this one (the 1394 device mode was one of those stab-in-the-dark attempts at maybe something simple...)

[wileycoyote]

I was having trouble getting the camera to connect via firewire until I realized i had to hold the MODE button down for several seconds for it to initialize.

[hvx200gtd]

I'm having the same problem with a brand new HVX200 with some footage I took a week ago. This is my 2nd HVX200 (after using another one since they were introduced).

Transferring footage from the HVX to a G-tech HD via firewire has always been a peice of cake, and I've done so successfully a couple of hundred times. So I don't know what's going on now.

My new camera is one of the first 16GB P2 card batches, where my first camera is still an 8GB cam. Could that factor be related to this problem?

Hoping someone has some advice on this. I will be calling my dealer on Monday.

- HVX200gtd

[David Saraceno]

For what it's worth, I changed the PC Mode to USB device on then used a USB cable to try to mount the HVX200 in Leopard.

I never had any success with this in Tiger.

It mounted and copied successfully in Leopard and from what I could see very quickly.

[hvx200gtd]

This was all my fault.

I had not changed the 1394 setting in menu 9.

I'm REALLY happy it was something simple like this, as my first HVX had given me 100% ease of use and a great work flow since using it when it first became available for sale. Footage is downloading to G-Drive Q as I type.

Also, hats off to the DVX sponsor I bought this camera from, who returned my call promptly this morning to let me know this might be the reason.

Thanks for the help.

[David Saraceno]

Those darn manuals. They should save the trees.

best

[ashr]

I'm still having the above mentioned problem and I can't seem to get rid of it. Mounting the card over firewire works flawlessly on my Macbook Pro, just not on my iMac and USB 2 transfer seems rather slow.

[David Saraceno]

USB2 will be slower than FW on a Mac. Also, the drivers are installed in the iMac?

[dks2619]

I had the same problem trying to mount my hvx on my new mac book pro using a firewire express card.
I had no problem mounting it on my Mac Pro with no drivers installed.
I finaly tried mounting via an external HDD connected on my laptop on the FW800 port, and it mounted without any problem.

So p2 DRIVERS ARE NOT NEEDED, FIREWIRE EXPRESS CARD MAY NOT MOUNT HVX 200 HVX 205 on MACBOOK PRO
USE AN EXTERNAL HDD on FW800 port in order to mount your camera

[wgzn]

ive been having intermittent firewire connection issues with my hpx 170 since day 1.
sometimes it will, sometimes not. often takes several powerdown/repower and plug/unplug of the cable...

[andythefilmer]

Just got my 170 today! I have always been able to dump rented HVX P2's to my Macbook Pro, and I know for a fact I have my drivers installed, and my PC MODE set to 1394 DEVICE. No luck. Also tried using another firewire cord, and also using a USB cord (and of course switching the PC MODE).

[wgzn]

ive had both an hvx200 and an hpx170 and both cameras had hit and miss connection as well as slower than normal transfer via firewire. which is odd, because ive never had any issue connecting the camera via firewire for live capture with adobe on location.

so, on the rare occasion that i have to transfer cards with the camera (both mac and windows) i use usb2

[DGW]

When I connect the camera to the Mac using Firewire, I get 1394 disconnect on the camera LCD. When i connect using USB, i get USB disconnect for a second which changes to USB connect and the card is mounted on the desktop.

Thanks in advance. Hope someone can shed some light on this.

I have never had any problems with mounting my HVX200A via firewire or USB2. I read on this forum that USB actually performs the mounting and transfer faster than firewire 400 (the protocol of USB2 is only slightly faster) due to an internal way the camera has to process something, so I tried it and admit it does seem a bit quicker. Either way, each connection shows DISCONNECT for a second before it switches to CONNECT.
My sequence is as follows: MAC OSX 10.4.11 is running. I connect via FW or USB making sure the device menu selection is either 1394 DEVICE or USB DEVICE respectively. With camera powered off I connect the cables to the MAC and HVX and then turn the camera power on. Holding MCR button for a couple seconds until I see the DISCONNECT/CONNECT in the viewfinder. The NO NAME icon appears on my desktop.
Not sure I have told you anything you don't know already, but that process has worked for me hundreds of times and, in fact, it has never not worked.
And, David S....I am using 10.4.11 Tiger on a dual 2.5 GHZ Power Mac G5 and the USB transfers works fine. Not sure if any Intel MAC's might have an issue.

[Barry_Green]

In the early days of the HVX200 series, Macs had G4 and G5 chips and they had horrible USB support. Apple's attitude at the time was that USB was for things like mice and keyboards, and that firewire was for anything serious. As such, the HVX offered two ways of connecting -- either 1394 Device (firewire), or USB device. USB device was guaranteed to work on Windows, but was not guaranteed on Macs. 1394 Device was guaranteed to work on Macs, but not guaranteed to work on Windows. USB on a g4/g5 mac might work, or it might not, but 1394 is always supposed to work. 1394 on a Windows system might or might not work (and I've had it intermittently flake out on me) but USB always works.

Since then, Macs have totally changed, they moved to Intel chips, they introduced OSX, and they fixed their USB problems. USB is now just as fast and just as reliable on a Mac, as it is on Windows. As such, newer cameras from Panasonic don't even offer 1394 Device mode anymore, it's all USB device, and (as wgzn and many others have found) USB Device works perfectly fine on these newer macs. I would recommend to everyone running OSX to use USB Device instead of 1394 Device, as long as you're connecting to a USB2 port (*not* USB1.1) and you're not using any sort of USB hub or repeater.

The other thing is if you're using USB to connect the camera, you don't necessarily want to be offloading to a USB drive. If both devices are on the same bus, it'll slow your transfer times significantly. Using USB for camera connection and firewire or eSATA for the drive, should result in much faster throughput.