importing from camcorder

[jeff & lynne]

I have been trying for five hours to get the video off my camcorder onto my computer. Toast recognizes my Canon ZR85. I put the camera in play mode at the beginning of the tape and I click the import button in toast, it then ask me to name the file which I do and then I click ok, then I get the spinning ball. I would wait 5 or 10 minutes and then I would force quit. The last time I waited a hour, still the spinning ball then a window came up and ask if the tape was inserted, camera connected and in playback mode which it is. The camera is in playback mode but stopped because earlier I tried playing it but all toast was doing was the spinning ball. I have recorded a 4 minute segment then it froze, then later I did a fifteen minute segment before it froze. After waiting fifteen or twenty minutes I would force quit. A lot of work to get a thirtyfive minute video off a camcorder. Any help would be appreciated.

I'm using a firewire cable and I have a G5 Power PC Duel 2.0 ghz. osX version 10.5.7

[tsantee]

It is supposed to work. When I connect my Canon ZR65 (powered on and at stop) Toast sees the camera and controls its operation the same as if I am importing to iMovie. One thing that could cause the spinning ball is if the hard drive where the video is being written is asleep. Toast may not wake it up. The same can occur if the Energy Saver system preference is to have the hard disk go to sleep when possible. Maybe Apple's OS doesn't know Toast is busy using that drive. I'm just making a wild guess.

 

You can capture the video to your hard drive without using Toast or iMovie. For example you can use QuickTime Pro. There also is a freeware application called Vidi that captures video from DV sources such as camcorders. I'm suggesting these alternatives because I'm on the road for a couple days and can't do any testing with my Canon camcorder to help guide you through this.

 

Since you've had to force quit Toast a few times I suggest trashing the Toast plist and prefs files in your User>Library>Preferences folder prior to the next time you launch Toast.

 

There is one other thing to try which is to download and apply the latest Combined System Update from Apple. Doing incremental updates (such as from 10.5.6 to 10.5.7) using Software Update can sometimes cause odd Firewire and USB problems that are fixed by applying the combined system updater on top of the existing system.