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Help! Mac OS X .5.2 and Canon HG10 HDD

D

derekwashington

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 10, 2008
5
0
I have an iMac -24 inch, Leopard, and a Canon HG10 camcorder, and I cannot get the two to dance. I have been searching the problem out, but am almost exasperated. Any helpful thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Derek
 
Perhaps a bit more description to your problem besides "cannot get the two to dance"? Does iMovie/FCE/FCP not recognize the camera when you're trying to capture? Or literally are you trying to get the camera and iMac to do the cha-cha?

Edit: Check this thread out. Seems the cameras hard drive has to be initialized first before it is recognized.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/403950/
 
trying to do more than dance

Hi Gymnut,

Thanks for your reply. Sorry for the cryptic description! Thanks for the reference to the other thread; I read it yesterday before posting, though I didn't quite understand it.

Let me clarify: when I connect the canon hg10 to the computer via usb (no firewire on hg10) and turn it on, and put in "play" mode, the computer recognizes the camera and a drive icon appears on the desktop. I can gain entry to it and examine the file names in it, but cannot import them into iMovie /iDVD. That is what I mean by "wouldn't dance."

The software that came with the camera, Corel, is unusable; I can put it in the drive, but there is nothing that opens, sets up, or installs. It looks like windows stuff only. There was a Image Browser app. on a separate disc that seems to only want to work with still images.

I was under the illusion that the canon hg10 would work seamlessly with Leopard - they told me this at Best Buy. Now I no longer live in innocent naivete.

Thanks for taking the time to think about this.
 
does initializing the canon mean I will lose my interational videos

I used the camera last week in Honduras, and don't want to lose those videos. If I have to initialize, might there be a place I can transfer those files?
 
I had a problem getting the two to "dance" as well. I thiink I got iMovie '08 to finally recognize the camera after going to < file / import from camera >. In fact I think I may have had to do that a couple of times. Give it a few minutes as well to see if it "catches". If it sees the camera's hard drive, then iMovie 08 should eventually see the footage.

I just remember trying a bunch of different things (turn camera off and on, unplug/plug in USB cable, etc) and eventually IMovie recognized the camera was attached. Sorry I don't recall exactly what it was, but I just remember it took some "fiddling around".

Once it connects though, and you get your footage, be sure to initialize the camera's HD. Once you do that, IMovie should recognize it right away.
 
i am using iMovie HD

I am using iMovie HD. I don't know if it is the same thing as iMovie 08. I just bought this machine 2 months ago, and I thought it was to have iMovie 08 on it. Again, I may be to naive (sp?)

The link you gave to apple is having a hard time loading on my machine. I will look for it and see if I can find it. Here's to hoping!
Derek
 
If you purchased it two months ago(brand new/refurbished I assume, then you would have to have the iLife '08 package installed with iMovie 7.x.x. You're sure that you are using iMovie HD? Because if that is the case, only iMovie '08 supports non tape based cameras, i.e. DVD/HDD cameras.
 
If you go up to the left hand corner under the menu < iMovie > and click on < About iMovie > it will tell you what version you're running. It should say "iMovie '08".

Since you can see the video camera's hard drive, you can try is to copy all the files off the camera's hard drive onto your computer and see if you can import them from there into iMovie. If nothing else, at least you'll have the files backed up until you can get iMovie '08.
 
The fact that this camera will not work with iMovie '06 is what made it a no-go for me. iMovie '08, from what I have seen, is a waste of time.
 
iMovie 08 should handle it, but as you say it's a tad crap.
I would go for Final Cut Express V4, it will do the business .. :)
 
starkruzr said:
The fact that this camera will not work with iMovie '06 is what made it a no-go for me. iMovie '08, from what I have seen, is a waste of time.
Click to expand...

There's a workaround for AVCHD camcorders and iMovieHD. As long as you have an Intel Mac, you will be able to use iMovie'08 to import/convert the AVCHD footage to AIC. Because of the way iMovie'08 imports, you will have access to the video files.

Then with iMovieHD, you import the AIC footage into your iMovieHD project.

Voila!

Alternatively, you could use something like Voltaic to import and catalog your AVCHD files.
 
ftaok said:
There's a workaround for AVCHD camcorders and iMovieHD. As long as you have an Intel Mac, you will be able to use iMovie'08 to import/convert the AVCHD footage to AIC. Because of the way iMovie'08 imports, you will have access to the video files.

Then with iMovieHD, you import the AIC footage into your iMovieHD project.

Voila!

Alternatively, you could use something like Voltaic to import and catalog your AVCHD files.
Click to expand...

Version 4 of Final Cut Express will also handle AVCHD files. I use it for editing AVCHD files from my Sony HD camcorder.
 
Father Jack said:
Version 4 of Final Cut Express will also handle AVCHD files. I use it for editing AVCHD files from my Sony HD camcorder.
Click to expand...

Does FCE edit the AVCHD files directly (unconverted) or does it need to convert them like iMovie '08?

Thanks
 
Reading of all these problems people are having with the HG10 is making me somewhat nervous. Was ready to buy this cam today, but not so sure now. What do people mean when they say "initialize" the camera? Formatting the drive in Disk Utility? I'm a pretty serious YouTube vlogger and need a reliable camera, but am eager to jump on the HDD bandwagon (i.e. skip the HV20) due to importing ease - or so I thought.
 
mongoos150 said:
Reading of all these problems people are having with the HG10 is making me somewhat nervous. Was ready to buy this cam today, but not so sure now. What do people mean when they say "initialize" the camera? Formatting the drive in Disk Utility? I'm a pretty serious YouTube vlogger and need a reliable camera, but am eager to jump on the HDD bandwagon (i.e. skip the HV20) due to importing ease - or so I thought.
Click to expand...

I bought the HG10 two weeks ago and love it! It imports effortlessly into iMovie '08 at about 1/2 real speed on my computer (auto transcoding into AIC) it edits quickly, and exports out like a breeze. I couldn't be happier.
 
Awesome. Just got it today on Amazon, I cannot wait for it to get here.

Really wish I could have an option to have the camera record straight to .mp4 or .m4v or something a bit more standard... So when you import the files into iMovie (or FCE or whatever), what file format is it? I know it's AVCHD (h.264) but what's the raw file format? I have FCP5, I suppose I would have to import through iMovie 8, then export to a different file format to edit in FCP5. Ack.
 
mongoos150 said:
Awesome. Just got it today on Amazon, I cannot wait for it to get here.

Really wish I could have an option to have the camera record straight to .mp4 or .m4v or something a bit more standard... So when you import the files into iMovie (or FCE or whatever), what file format is it? I know it's AVCHD (h.264) but what's the raw file format? I have FCP5, I suppose I would have to import through iMovie 8, then export to a different file format to edit in FCP5. Ack.
Click to expand...

I believe that's correct, or you could use FCE 4 also.

I don't mind the AVCHD codec in general, bummer that 24fps on the HG10 is basically useless, but the 1080i works great so I'm not concerned about it.

btw - I just started using a QuickTime Component Addin, x264Encoder (search www.macupdate.com for it) and it's great because it lets me export out of iMovie using QT and be able to export using x264 using a High Profile setting that QT otherwise wouldn't let me use.
 
Canon HG 10 and Final Cut Express - help

I've read this thread with interest, but I have one difference: I'm trying to use Final Cut Express 4 to work with my Canon HG10. So far, nothing! Yet I would seem to have all the necessary equipment to make this work: intel-powered iMac 2GHz, Canon HG10 AVCHD camcorder and Final Cut Express 4.0. I have read that one simply uses FCE's "Log & Transfer" window to bring the clips in from the camcorder, but I've tried and nothing shows up in the window -- no clips, nothing. I've tried everything I can think of to bring those camcorder files into FCE, but it won't find/see them. Yet the camcorder does show up on the desktop. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! (Starting to think seriously about returning the HG10 for the miniDV-based HV20...)
 
Import your video from the HG10 to your Mac using iMovie '08, then export an XML for use in FCE.

Bflo11 said:
I've read this thread with interest, but I have one difference: I'm trying to use Final Cut Express 4 to work with my Canon HG10. So far, nothing! Yet I would seem to have all the necessary equipment to make this work: intel-powered iMac 2GHz, Canon HG10 AVCHD camcorder and Final Cut Express 4.0. I have read that one simply uses FCE's "Log & Transfer" window to bring the clips in from the camcorder, but I've tried and nothing shows up in the window -- no clips, nothing. I've tried everything I can think of to bring those camcorder files into FCE, but it won't find/see them. Yet the camcorder does show up on the desktop. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! (Starting to think seriously about returning the HG10 for the miniDV-based HV20...)
Click to expand...
 
I'm having this problem myself. I have all the latest software, including iMovie '08 updates, and am running a Macbook Pro Core Duo. Every time I connect the camcorder it mounts as a hard drive in OS X (Leopard, latest release). I have the Canon HG10 connected to the USB and iMovie still isn't recognizing the camera. When I copy the .mts files onto my external drive iMovie '08 won't accept them because they are grayed out.

I have already initialized the Canon hard drive (the steps on how to do this are in the Canon HG10 user manual) and recorded a new video to test it out. iMovie '08 still doesn't recognize it.

Thoughts? Glimmer of hope?
 
iMovie '08 eventually recognized the camera after it was plugged in for about 20 minutes but I don't know that it would have recognized it at all if I didn't initialize the hard drive. Now it recognizes the camera as soon as I plug it in so the lesson here is to RTFM (read the manual) and initialize the hard drive before shooting video. I lost the video I had recorded but fortunately for me it was just a series of test videos to test how it would work in OS X.

Edit: Yes, it was connected to a power source (wall charger) and set in "Play" mode the entire time.
 
i thought i was going nuts that i couldn't get that corel software rubbish to run but i'm not as ignorant as i feared.

but i do have a problem. i haven't initialised my hg10 hard-drive and have two concerts recorded on it that i really don't want to lose. any thoughts on how i can get these movies onto my computer without losing them? has anyone got the i-movie 08 thing to work without initialising the hard-drive? and if so, how?

have mac os x 10.4.11 2 GHZ intel core 2 duo (or at least that's what that apple thing in the corner tells me)

all help much appreciated
 
HG10 with iMovie'08 and 10.5.5

Hi all,

I've got my hands on an HG10 for a while, and got it to work more or less without trouble with both iMovie'08(7.1.4) and Final Cut Pro (6.0.4) on OSX 10.5.5 without initialising the camera's hard drive first. You will need the 6.0.4 update to get the camera to work with Final Cut Pro though.

This worked for me, so try this if you're still having troubles:
- Plug in camera power and usb adapter. Switch to review mode on the camera.
- When the camera has mounted on the desktop (should be a disk with the name "CANON_HDD" or such), open iMovie
- Go to File>>Import from Camera... and wait for iMovie to find the camera.
- You should then be able to just select the clips you wish to import by hitting the checkboxes under the clips.

Enjoy! :D
 
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