imovie HD (6) - what is going on?

[BenFancy]

I teach basic video production in a high school and yesterday discovered that none of my students could download any footage into imovie hd from any of the cameras we have in class. We have 6 mini's and two imacs, we're using Canon GL2's and JVC widescreen miniDV cameras.

Overnight, nothing is now working? When we plug the camera's in, the software no longer recognizes the camera and we no longer get the blue screen ready to import. Software updates were run on all of the minis and imacs but to no avail...Any ideas? Even when I plug numerous different camera's into my MacBookPRO nothing registers anymore.

This is very frustrating....and I have a class in two hours!

 

[The Man]

That is strange. Were there any software installs before it all happened? Are all the computers networked to each other? How about that MacBook Pro? Was there maybe a power outage or spike, or maybe lightening, while the cameras were plugged in and fried the FireWire? Do all equipment have a surge protector?

 

[pavelbure]

make sure you don't have any firewire hard drives plugged in. my imovie will not recognize my canon video camera unless the external harddrives are unmounted and unplugged.

1. unmount hard drives
2. unplug hard drives
3. start up imovie
4. turn on the camera

these are the steps i have to do for mine to work. it took me awhile and some searching to figure this out.