Canon Elura 100 won't work with Final Cut Express and scratch disk

[KJdanReuben]

I posted a new thread a couple days ago saying that I wasn't able to capture anything with Final Cut Express 3.5.1 using a scratch disk and my Canon Elura 100 (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/433715/). Well, today my friend gave me his camera to get some stuff off of it and I decided to try Final Cut one last time. It worked! I don't understand it. Final Cut will work, with a scratch disk, with a Sony HDR-HC6 HDV camcorder, but it won't work with my Canon Elura 100? The Elura 100 is supported by Final Cut Express so I don't know what could be the problem! Somebody help please! Thanks!

The scratch disk a G-Technology G-Drive if you need to know. I bought it for this soul reason so it is kind of aggravating that it won't work with my camcorder.

 

[-DH]

Due to Canon's rather loose adherence to the Firewire standard, Canon camcorders don't play nice with FCE or FCP. The other issue with Cannon gear is that it often creates problems when sharing a Firewire bus with other FW devices.

The first step would be to make sure you have the right setting in Final Cut. Device Control should be set to "Firewire Basic" - NOT "Firewire NTSC" or "Firewire PAL."

The next step is to determine the best connection method for the camcorder. And that depends which type of Mac you have. Since all Macs only have one Firewire bus (regardless of the number of Firewire ports), all Firewire devices are sharing the same bus - something Canon doesn't do well.

If you have a tower system, you can add a Firewire PCI card. If you have a laptop with a card slot, you can add a PCMCIA or Cardbus34 Firewire card. Either way the added card will create a second Firewire bus inside your Mac.

If your Mac has no expansion capabilities (eMac, iMac, MacMini and some laptops) try this: Connect the drive to your Mac then connect the camera to the drive instead of using two FW ports.

And if that doesn't work well, you can capture to your boot drive (with the G-Tech drive disconnected), then power down, reconnect the G-Tech drive and move the files to your G-Tech drive after capturing (but prior to editing).

Last but not least, consider using a non-Canon device for capturing purposes. Devices from Sony, Panasonic and others don't have the issues that Canons do.

-DH

 

[KJdanReuben]

Thanks! The response was very helpful, although disappointing too because of the whole Canon thing. I tried hooking the camcorder up directly to the drive instead of the computer, but it still didn't work. What type of camera would you recommend that is on par with the Canon HV20, because I was going to buy one soon but now I don't know if I wanna get the HV20.

 

[huntercr]

Thanks! The response was very helpful, although disappointing too because of the whole Canon thing. I tried hooking the camcorder up directly to the drive instead of the computer, but it still didn't work. What type of camera would you recommend that is on par with the Canon HV20, because I was going to buy one soon but now I don't know if I wanna get the HV20.

As an alternative, you can always capture with iMovie 06 (HD). It is a free download, and you can export as full DV. You'll will likely have to render all of your audio if you go with this method.