No firewire port on macbook pro, so how the heck do i capture?

J

Jungle Media

Don't Stalk Member
Ok so I have a RED camera now and have been using my new macbook pro for all editing as it is intel based, no probs. But I just did a project with a few canon xh a1's in hd, and in order to capture the footage i need to to plug in a firewire cable.. however there's no ports on my macbook pro! so frustrating.

So i noticed that my external monitor which is a 23 inch apple cinema display has two firewire ports, which i have used to hook up camera before on my other computer... but when i have this monitor set up as a second monitor to my macbook pro and plug the camera into there, it doesnt work. FCP won't recognize that the camera is hooked up.

Is there something i have to do for it to recognize the camera is hooked into the external monitor?

also, the external hard drive i'm using for my scratch disk has a firewire port too, but same prob, FCP doesnt recognize it. it's fcp 7, btw.

Any advice? Do I have to buy an adapter?

BTW, the reason i'm doing this on my macbook pro when i also have another Mac Pro that captures just fine, is that i'm getting dropped frames like crazy during capture so I figured it might work better on my newer computer.

anywho... help!!!! please!!! :)
 
question pertaining to your Mac Pro...

you say that your are getting dropped frames when importing? although i edit on an 8 core, my kid uses my macbookpro much of the time *just* for importing from a variety of cameras (HMC150, HV30, HG20) just so he doesnt tie up his tower.

{IF} he tries to play the video in "log and transfer" {while} the laptop is actually importing then...there are problems!!! most of the time the clip that is supposed to be importing gets messed up if hes trying to preview another clip at the same time.

if this is when your problem occurs then when you drop a clip in the bottom window of the L&T....DONT be previewing another video in their preview window.

no other problems

i have a friend that claims he used a converter plug to convert his firewire 400-800. mind you this is just a cheap SD canon ZR series consumer. he did have success but on a more current HD camera i cant say ive ever done it.

im usually using an EX1 or a 5DmkII but interestingly is i try to import my kids HMC150 into my 8 core i have problems if the format sizes vary on the card. cant seem to mix 1080 with 720 while importing. will crash.

so many mac mysteries!

david
www.davidprobst.com
 
What MacBook Pro model doesn't have firewire? I'm pretty sure thay all do. You just need an 8-pin to 4-pin FW cable...
 
Ted Spencer said:
Right, so as Ullanta pointed out, all you need is a 6-9 pin (FW400-FW800) cable. Readily available, for cheap. "Problem" solved...
Click to expand...

An IOMEGA 1T disk I bought a couple of weeks ago, had a 8-6 pin Firewire A Dapter cable as part of the kit... So, someone somewhere in the disk drive world must have seen a need... but one does have to pay for the 'premium' of Firewire, relative to the USB equivalents...
 
thanks guys. I only had the camera for a day to capture the footage so I didnt have time to buy any adapter or cable.. but i just captured it all on my mac pro and dealt with the constant time code breaks... ended up with a bunch of different clips from a 1 hour show, but eh, what can ya do...

will look into this cable to future reference tho, thanks!
 
is this adaptor FULLPROOF?

is this adaptor FULLPROOF?

j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
An IOMEGA 1T disk I bought a couple of weeks ago, had a 8-6 pin Firewire A Dapter cable as part of the kit... So, someone somewhere in the disk drive world must have seen a need... but one does have to pay for the 'premium' of Firewire, relative to the USB equivalents...
Click to expand...

i have one of these plug converters and i am wondering though...will it play nicely with all & everyone of the varied HD cameras out there now?

i use one of these for my protools sometimes on my 8 core and i get crashes. still have a G5 which is where i do most of my protools work.

can anyone say that this adaptor works ***just like it was a native firewire 400*** with no ifs ands or buts?

thanks
david
www.davidprobst.com
 
Just to be clear, firewire cables/adapters are either 6-pin (standard, typically on hard drives and computers) or 4-pin (mini, typically on camcorders), both of which are for FW400, or 9-pin for FW800 (on higher end hard drives and computers). There is no 8-pin spec.
 
Right! 9-pin, not 8! Sorry!

A 9-pin to 4 or 6-pin adapter should function as expected. If you don't have the exact cable (e.g., 9-to-4), you can also daisy-chain if you have, say, a drive that has both FW400 and 800 ports...
 
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