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nralph · Aug 5, 2003, 03:48 PM

Can anyone help me? I have just purchased Dazzle's Hollywood DV Bridge and connected an old camcorder to it, in order to transfer Hi8 films onto DVD through iMovie 3.0.3. I have tried several things but nothing will produce an import into my iMac.

Am I doing something basically wrong? Am I trying to do the impossible? Is there a fix? I have looked around for answers and cannot find any so far. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Nick

willab · Aug 5, 2003, 08:09 PM

Plug everything in before you start iMovie. Mine did not work so I took it back. Get a cheap canon zr45 or above and you can stream the video through it.

nralph · Aug 7, 2003, 02:35 AM

I have tried everything. I have tried starting iMovie last, even restarting the Mac last and then iMovie. I have also tried repairing permissions, and looking at iMovie in OS 9 but it will not work in OS 9 at all.

Anyone any other ideas?

Nick

edavis · Aug 7, 2003, 12:44 PM

I am not trying to insult your intelligence, but are you sure you have the cords connected to the right side of the bridge? If you are importing from camera to iMac, the cords go from the camera to the "IN" side of the bridge. When exporting the finished product to the camera, move the cords to the "OUT" side of the bridge. If you have the cables plugged into the "out" side of the bridge, thinking that you are moving video "out" of the camera, it will just stare at you, which sounds like what you are experiencing.

MoparSteve · Aug 7, 2003, 04:01 PM

If you're not able to get your Dazzle to work and are able to take it back, you may want to consider getting a Sony Digital 8 camcorder. You can use it to play the analogue 8 tapes, and it will also convert and output it in digital. You'll then have a digital camcorder to boot, too.

nralph · Aug 8, 2003, 05:38 AM

Sorted.

Thanks for all the advice and no my intelligence was not insulted. I am just grateful for the help. In the end I got through to a tech line and they solved it straightaway. In case it is helpful for others the fix is below.

The DV Bridge was set to NTSC when it should (for me) have been set to PAL. This is toggled by unplugging everything from it including power, holding in the toggle switch on the back and then attaching the power cord. Hold the toggle switch in until you see the three lights on the front flash either green or red. You do it once to change to the other setting.

It then worked like a dream and I have already burnt my first DVD with family video now preserved for posterity. Now I am rather pleased.

Nick

edavis · Aug 8, 2003, 08:05 AM

I'm happy to hear you got the problem fixed. Sorry that I didn't notice you were writing from the UK...that might have clued us in that the problem was NTSC/PAL related, and we might have come up with the answer sooner.

I have been using the DV Bridge for about 2 years, and it has worked very well for me. Occassionally, I will get a "stutter" in the sound when importing multiple clips, but I just re-import, and they seem to work well after that.

Good luck!

Hollywood · Mar 13, 2004, 12:36 PM

Originally posted by nralph:
Sorted.

Thanks for all the advice and no my intelligence was not insulted. I am just grateful for the help. In the end I got through to a tech line and they solved it straightaway. In case it is helpful for others the fix is below.

The DV Bridge was set to NTSC when it should (for me) have been set to PAL. This is toggled by unplugging everything from it including power, holding in the toggle switch on the back and then attaching the power cord. Hold the toggle switch in until you see the three lights on the front flash either green or red. You do it once to change to the other setting.

It then worked like a dream and I have already burnt my first DVD with family video now preserved for posterity. Now I am rather pleased.

Nick

Thanks for this support. It was just what I needed for my PAL-movies.