Sony says NO to Mac HDR-HC-7 compatibility . . . HELP!

Official word from SONY is that they do NOT support the HDR-HC-7 video on a Mac (see email below).

Quandry-
The HC-7 works perfectly with my friend's 2.66 Woodcrest yet neither of my G4's (PowerBook and Quicksilver) can view the image (using exactly the same settings as the Woodcrest). I have done the usual: trashed the FCP prefs, reloaded Quicktime, swapped cables during capture, etc. Is there a specific component I might upgrade or tweak?? Can anyone help me here - PLEASE!


Here is the letter from Sony that follows several days of phone conversation with a number of their tech support staff:

Good Morning Mr. Cutter

Regarding our conversation yesterday I checked the information with the engineer and this model can connect to MAC to download pictures from the memory stick using the supply software according also to the manual, but to download video we cannot guarantee that will be connecting to MAC it may not as that is not one of the specifications to this particular model.

Sorry for the delay on this and have a good day!
SONY
Laredo Customer Satisfaction Center
Diana Olvera
Technical Support
Phone (866) 357-6230
Fax (956) 728-2132
diana.olvera@am.sony.com <mailto:diana.olvera@am.sony.com>

just another in the slew of reasons to do a ton of research before buying into any of this new gen "pseudo-HD" camera gear...

"!vive le dvcprohd!"

Hi there

I think you'll find that neither your PB or G4 has a GFX card fast enough to handle HDV preview on the Capture window... both use PCI GFX cards which does not support HDV preview.

[docs.info.apple.com]

There is no problem with the HDR-HC-7 on any G5 or Intel with AGP or PCI Express GFX card

Your only option on these machines is to hook up an external monitor to the Camera to monitor playback. Which incidentally you should really be doing anyway.

Good luck!

Ben



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

On the Mac Woodcrest the Sony HDR-HC7 is controlled via the HDV-1080i60 presets.

On both my G-4's the HC-7 can ONLY be controlled through the DVCPRO HD-1080i60 presets.

If anyone can tell me why I'd appreciate the lesson. Regardless, I'm VERY stoked to have this thing working and hopefully someone can learn from my T&E.

OK now the control side does sound a bit odd - I used the HDV presets with no problems on both G5 & Intel.

Have you got any other firewire devices hooked up to the G4 at the same time?

Try just using the HDV on its own first - see if you can get device control with the HDV easy setups...

Ben



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Hi Ben-
The only Firewire connection from the G4 is to the HDR-HC7. HDV easy set up takes control of the camera but doesn't engage any video (the screen remains black even after clicking "refresh A/V devices".

DVCPRO-HD works perfectly which I THOUGHT was for Panasonic stuff, not Sony.

~Ralph

That is really weird - you should not be able to see the screen at all as your PCI graphics card shouldn't be able to handle HDV decoding as fast as you need it for preview...

Did you not read the article?

Quote

HDV Log and Capture Preview is disabled when a PCI graphics card is installed

If your computer has a PCI graphics card installed and you are logging or capturing HDV, Final Cut Pro does not preview video or audio in the Log and Capture window. You can still log and capture, but you'll need to use your HDV camcorder display to preview video.

©Apple Computer

Interesting that you can see it using DVCproHD I will have to take your word for it as I cannot test on a PCI Graphics G4...

Ben



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]