[MacDV] Re: JVC Recorder

[Rod Duncan]

I've been using a JVC HR_DVS1U (original model) since it was 
introduced 3 years? ago. It wasn't officially supported by Apple and 
I crossed my fingers when I bought it. I have used it successfully 
with iMovie, Final Cut Pro 3.01 and FCExpress 1.0.1.

Couple of things. Are you capturing directly to the same drive that 
your system & application is on. In an ideal world you would like a 
separate drive to capture your project to and in a better world, a 
separate drive to render to. Saves wear and tear on HD heads and is 
much quicker.

I doubt that is your problem in your sound capturing glitches, just 
something to bear in mind. Your computer is certainly fast enough. As 
a no comparison, my system is using a 768 MB RAM PB Ti 667 DVI 
running 3 external hard drives, (2-120 Gb & 30 Gb) the JVC deck and 
an external FW DVD burner so you have much more CPU juice than me.

Have you tried using iMovie 2.1.2? Personally, iMovie 3 ( and the 
upgrades) have burned me so badly a number of times that I nowrefuse 
to use it. Not in any capture issues necessarily with the deck but in 
many and various glitches that it continues to exhibit in editing. As 
a result, I have backgraded to iMovie 2.1.2 and recommend it heartily 
to all. I am not alone either after a good friend who is using a 
faster 1 GHz G4 flat panel iMac got so frustrated with iMovie 3 after 
continually losing work that I backgraded him, too. He now smiles 
while he edits. Too bad as iMovie 3 has such a nice interface. I 
digress...

I would suggest the 12-bit sound issue is not the problem either. 
That will show up only with sync issues and can be fixed in 
Quicktime. Unless you are running two mikes or a wireless mike with 
something like a Canon XL1 then you should almost always use 16-bit 
sound. Does your TRV900 allow you to choose between 12 and 16 bit? 
Probably, as they are great camera's. If so, make sure you are 
capturing at 16-bit. Change your deck to 16-bit (48kHz) also. Have 
you checked to make sure that your original footage is without sound 
issues? You know the cliche, garbage in... garbage out.

More JVC deck flotsam... sometimes, the system doesn't recognize the 
deck as a firewire device. ?? Simple solution. Unplug the firewire 
connection to the deck from the computer wait a few seconds and plug 
back in. The procedure reboots the FW bus and bingo your deck should 
be recognized. I have had better success unplugging from the back of 
the computer than on the small FW plug on the JVC deck. As you know, 
the front connection is the standard and more fragile 4-pin type 
camera connection so better to manipulate the larger 6-pin on the 
computer as a general rule. However, after that warning I don't 
follow my own advice 'cause when copying from the miniDV to VHS or 
the reverse and I want to use my computer I unplug the front FW plug 
as it is more convenient for me. In doing that, be careful and make 
sure you correctly have the 4-pin aligned properly on re-plug as I 
have heard of ham-fisted types jamming it in the wrong way. I have 
also found it is better to have your deck on before launching editing 
software and quitting such before shutting the deck off. Obviously, 
this doesn't apply when capturing a finished project back to miniDV. 
Then... just make sure the computer won't go to sleep and let the 
capture to the deck proceed - uninterrupted and unabated.

Other cool things that this JVC deck can do, and not documented with 
my version DVS1U, is the ability to capture directly off an external 
and older analog 8mm camera or H8 or digital 8 models through the 
external RCA/SVideo plugs on the front of the deck. I have captured 
footage directly, on-the-fly, from an external devices directly onto 
a separate FW drive without first capturing to either VHS or miniDV. 
That feature alone has saved me countless hours. Didn't mean to blab 
on but as you can guess I do like the deck and its features.

To summarize:
Get your deck set-up properly. Double check deck menu settings. Read 
the manual. Check original footage. I wouldn't be the least bit 
surprised that your issues are iMovie 3 related. IMHO... iMovie 3.0.3 
sucks. After doing all that, then have the deck either checked or 
replaced.

My 2 cents.
(I guess this one is 10 cents...)

Rod

>I actually went back and read the manual, which says something about 
>dubbing at 12-bit
>rather than 16-bit sound.  Does that ring a bell?  I can't change 
>the setting because I
>don't have a tv hooked up yet so the remote doesn't work.   I wonder 
>if those two
>changes -- 16-bit to 12-bit and hooking up the tv may make a 
>difference.  We'll see
>......
>
>BobLL
>
>Richard Gilmore wrote:
>
>>  We have the identical VCR plugged into a G4 and iMovie 3 and have had no
>>  problems with video or sound. It generally works quite well. Can you take it
>>  back to where you got it and do an exchange? Beyond that I have no advice.
>>
>>  Richard
>>
>>  Quoting lloyds <lloyds at vermontel.net>:
>>
>>  > I just bought a JVC HR_DVS3U dual tape recorder, thinking that it would
>>  > save wear on my TRV-900 and be really convenient at copying from mini DV
>>  > tapes to VHS tapes and act as an interface to a TV monitor.  It has a
>>  > firewire control socket which works well from iMovie 3 on my dual G4
>>  > mac, so far as obeying instructions, but the sound has skips in it, both
>>  > as it plays directly in iMovie and as it records into iMovie.  I have
>>  > yet to try recording onto a VHS tape, but I wonder if anybody has ideas
>>  > whether this skipping is fixible.  The TRV900 works just fine on the
>>  > same tape, so I guess it's not the cable.
>>  >
>  > > BobLL

-- 
---------------------------------
Rod Duncan

"Buy a Mac and be thought a fool
or buy a Windows box and remove all doubt."