JVC HD 10U footage capture through Sony HDR FX1

kai65

I have been filming a short film using the JVC HD 10U camera which,
due to faults it has developed, has been fixed twice by JVC. It now seems to have developed a problem with the firewire connection as the cable feels loose in the connector and the camera is not recognised on any of the four macs at my house (my dual G5, G4 iBook and both my daughters have G4 towers).
Due to the problems the group I am working with bought the Sony FX1E and I discovered that this would play back the tapes made with the JVC. However I have been unable to capture this footage using the Sony. The Sony is recognised no problem and capture from any recordings from the Sony is great but I cannot capture from any of the JVC recordings.
I will be sending the JVC back for a warranty repair anyway but I was really wanting to get editing as soon as (FCP).
I have tried all methods that I can think of, Lumiere and DVHScap can both see the Sony but the resulting .m2t files are 0kb in size. iMovie HD again can see the Sony but cannot capture the JVC footage. The JVC was seen previous in iMovie before the fault developed.
If anyone can offer me any help or advice on this problem I would greatly appreciate it.

mgparrish

If I read your post correctly:

1. The JVC tape can be viewed on your Sony.

2. The firewire on your Sony can be read using Sony 1080i media recorded media.

3. The JVC 720P media cannot be read over firewire from the Sony.

???

When you mention that the JVC tape can be played back by the Sony does this mean capable of being viewed by the built-in LCD monitor on the cam only?

I doubt if the JVC video be seen on a HDTV thru the component outputs of the Sony because Sony is 1080/480 only and not aware of any ability to convert the output video to 720P.

If you have access to a Mitsubishi HD RPTV many have firewire inputs and you can see if the JVC video is really being output over the Sony firewire. If you don't know anyone who has a Mits TV you may be able to access one at a major electronics retailer.

If it can be seen on the Mits TV over firewire then obviously there would be a software concern.

If you have a friend with a Windows PC and firewire try the CapDVHS pgm (free) as it works for both JVC and Sony. It can capture HDV video from those cameras but cannot write back to a camera. Once you have the JVC 720P HDV captured on disk then it could be worked with.

I use CapDVHS for my FX1 captures. I'm even using CapDVHS to grab HD video from my cablebox with firewire out. 720P and 1080i.

Steve C

I too own both camcorders, i.e. FX-1e and HD10u and can indeed confirm that 720p 30fps NTSC HD10u tapes play back to HDTV via component from the PAL 1080i 50fps Sony. The video is visible on the FX-1e LCD during playback.

Unfortunately it appears the problem of digital capture is different altogether from simply playing back a video stream via analogue component connection.

Without knowing the data pathway that Sony built into the FX-1e, I'd still hazard an educated guess that the data miss-match would become apparent when the data stream is transferred from tape to firewire connection.

While firewire will allow a bi-directional connection between the cam and your computer, there's no way for either to be aware of a data mis-match that will fail in the camera... hence you can 'see' the FX-1e when connected via firewire, but end up capturing 0kb.

It's interesting to see that PAL and NTSC HDV devices appear to have some level of compatibility. My HD10u has a non-functioning component connection, so I can't tell whether the 'compatibility' is one way only or not...

kai65

Hi
Thanks for your replies. As I have sent the camera back to JVC, I'll just need to wait until it's returned as I don't have access to the Mitsubishi HD RPTV as I am in the UK. I did think it was the way JVC records Mpeg 2 that was the reason for this.