HVX-200 will not work with firewire at all?

E

eph3x

Member
We've got 2 new Mac g5's and 2 new HVX 200's running OS X 10.5.4 and FCP 6.0 on both machines. The HVX's had been connecting fine via firewire through a firewire patch bay to ports in the video card (we have saffire boxes for audio on the main ports) but all of a sudden both cameras have stopped connecting to the Macs via firewire. we've tried all manner of combinations with different cables, connecting directly without the patch bay, with the saffire boxes, without them, in the video card slots, in the regular firewire slots but nothing works so far. The p2 cards don't even show up on the profiler, let alone on the desktop. USB works fine with the settings in menu #9 set to USB, and we can log footage quite quickly with it, but we're set up with all firewire paraphernalia. Has anyone else had any problems like this? Help would be greatly appreciated.
 
i'll tell you what. yesterday i spent 3 hours trying to get my imac intel core 2 to recognize my hvx200a. it simply will not mount on the desktop. period. usb works great, but via firewire, no dice. you can google this all day and you will see that certain imac users (seems like the first run of the new silver ones) CAN NOT get their hvx200 to mount on the desktop at all. but very strangely, USB works great. my hvx200a has no problem mounting onto my macbook intel core 2 laptop, but the new silver imac, nothing! it's very frustrating. I can log and transfer into FCP 6 using USB Device but as soon as i switch it to Firewire device, I get absolutely nothing. I have every new driver and everyting set up perfectly, just will not be recognized via firewire by the imac.
it's either a OS version thing or a first run imac thing in my opinion. thankfully the USB transfer rates are not all that bad. but losing firewire capability is a bummer. not sure what to do about that.
 
To the original OP, my suspicion is blow firewire ports on either the Mac or the cam or both.

If you have another machine, try it with that, but connecting by FW always requires so much care.

I don't know what a "firewire patch bay" refers to or how that pertains to "ports in the video card," but certainly is a non standard way to connect.
 
More wierdness

More wierdness

I think you guys may be right, I was thinking that since both cameras stopped working on both machines it might be an OS update that messed it up. With more troubleshooting the problem has only gotten weirder though- one machine has started giving us an error whenever we plug the HVX200 in via firewire to the video card it pops up an error saying "please restart the computer by holding down the power button for several seconds." We have not been able to test this on the second G5 yet. This only occurs when using the firewire patch bay*, however. We have a G4 with tiger and a couple of XP machines (a dell d820 and a d610) here that we could test as well, perhaps. *The patch bay is just a box with a number of firewire ports that lets us connect all the blu-ray, dvd, dv, and beta cameras towers and burners etc. to each other and the Macs without having to unhook them from the back. thank you for you help here.
 
So it's a Firewire hub.

Firewire hubs further dilute the single firewire bus on Macs.

I don't know anyone who recommends them.

good luck
 
David S. said:
So it's a Firewire hub.

Firewire hubs further dilute the single firewire bus on Macs.

I don't know anyone who recommends them.

good luck
Click to expand...

That's why we've got it running into the video card, and we've tried bypassing the patch panel anyway. I thought that was a weird setup at first too, but it seems that these cards have a separate firewire bus and 3 ports on the back of the machine. Is it possible that the ports on the cameras could have been damaged if someone plugged them into the regular Mac hub with the saffire box?
 
I'm sorry, but I have no idea about how you mount a HVX200 in the Firewire Connect mode "running into a video card."

What video card are you referring to?
 
David S. said:
I'm sorry, but I have no idea about how you mount a HVX200 in the Firewire Connect mode "running into a video card."

What video card are you referring to?
Click to expand...

Here are some pictures that may help explain things. The video card is an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT. It operates a second bus, separate from the main Mac bus. We got a PD 100 camera to connect to one machine with no problems, but still nothing hvx.
firewiresetup.jpg
 
that card is not a video card, thats a firewire/1394 card. i would try connecting the hvx to the firewire ports that are the original firewire ports on the computer, try the front and the back one.
 
As stated by mangler, that isn't a video card. It's a PCI FW card.

You might want to restate your issue with this in mind
 
ahh, ok. The tech support guys who put all this stuff together had been calling it the "video card" slot I guess because the NVIDIA is on the pci slot? At any rate we've tried the HVX in that and both the front and back ports, with and without the saffire box connected. And the PD 100, Sony dvcam deck and the Blu-Ray burner connected through the PCI FW card without any problems. At this point it would probably be easier to convince the bosses to do without firewire and just get us some USB cables.

Thank you guys
 
Not going to work on a Mac reliably.

Better question is whether the FW port is blow on the cam.

Try it on another computer carefully
 
I'm not sure if this is helpful in any way since you're on a Mac Pro, but as someone else mentioned earlier about the iMacs, there seems to be a potential Apple issue. No matter what, I can't seem to get my HVX to show up on my newer Intel iMac, but on my older one running an older OS, it does show up. Does your G4 have an older OS? I think it's an operating system issue more than a computer age issue maybe?
 
The G4 is running 10.4. If it was an OS update that would explain why both cameras stopped working with both G5's at the same time... But it now FCP 6 has quit working too, just loads, tells me it can't find the DV deck, and disappears when I click continue. So I guess I'll get that sorted now lol.
 
Use a flash light to make sure that the pins aren't broken. Shine it into the firewire port and make sure that there are four golden pins. If the jack is missing one or if they aren't in a perfectly straight line, than you most likely have a broken firewire port in the camera. If you look and you see nothing wrong, that still doesn't rule out a bad jack. The pins can still break on the other side. You may need a ASC to look at it. We have some time coming up next week to take a look at them for you. PM me if you need to find out how to send them in.

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to: Spec-Comm, That's it. The ports on the cameras are missing pins. Oriented so that the "1394" label is above the port, they are both missing the second pin from the top. They had both been working fine initially, so why would they both break around the same time-having been connected once or twice each? Manufacturer defect? I checked the cables we've been using as well and they appear to be fine. The pins are all lined up as they should be and they have not caused any problems with other devices. Thank you for the repair offer, but we still have a warranty and replacement program through the place where we bought them.

To any of the others who have been having problems connecting via firewire, do you have missing pins too?
 
All my pins are safe and sound... I just thought I'd chime in and say that I too can't connect to my 'new edition silver Imac' - which is a pain in the arse.
Thank goodness Panasonic had the savvy to chuck the USB on it too!

Is there anyway we can petition Apple with this problem?
 
try hooking to a pc through known good fw cable. if still inop probably smoked fw ports. suppose to power down everything when cabling set up NO HOT SWAP if found to be blown send to fox valley video service 847-844-3330
 
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