Wintel imac not recognising Sony DCR-HC15E camera

Title pretty much explains it - my imac won't recognise my Sony DCR-HC15E camera. No icon on the desktop - apparently the firewire bus sees it, only the finder can't/won't - the FW bus registers:

FireWire Bus:
Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
DCR-HC15E:
Manufacturer: Sony
Model: 0x3800C5
GUID: 0x800460103138EF3
Maximum Speed: Up to 100 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Unknown
Sub-units:
DV-VCR Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x10001
Unit Spec ID: 0xA02Dbrand new firewire cable, toggle set to VCR, imac running 10.4.10


The sony website doesn't have a mac driver for the camera, with previous sony video cams it's just been plug and play - even on my old sage G3 450.

FW cable is new, camera is set to VCR, system is listed above. Again, the finder doesn't see the camera.

Anyone got an idea on what might get me up and running - I'm open to anything, even abuse if it's going to help?

-DH said:

It appears that your iMac DOES recognize the camera since it does show up in System Profiler. But why were you expecting for an icon to show up on the desktop? If you have iMovie, FCE or FCP you should be able to launch one of those programs and capture footage from the camera.-DH

Click to expand...

Agree that it does see it, sure. Might be old school thinking, but 'normally or historically' you get a camera icon on the desktop when you connect a camera to an imac.

This aside, there's no option to open files from it using any software - imovie, idvd etc. just don't see it.

If I choose to import video all I get is a finder window with no camera in the menu - there's just no way to access the data on the camera at all.

Previously All I did was plug a sony camera into an imac and bam, imovie would open and away I went. I also got an icon on the desktop.

But with this thing the finder can't locate it - copy and paste the letters DCR-HC15E I come up with nada, even in a new finder search, which is way weird since the sytem profiler obviously knows it's there.