[Ambassadeur]

Some time ago I lost the original USB cable that came with my Canon A40 camera. I bought a replacement USB cable with the appropriate Mini-USB connector on one end (A or B, whatever Canon uses) and it worked fine for transferring pics to my mac and everything.

Two days ago I got my iPod camera connector to transfer pics directly from camera to iPod for storage. So I hooked my camera up to it and nothing happened, iPod said no card inserted, while the camera was indeed connected. Same with another camera. Well, so either Ipod or connector would be defect, since the transfer camera-to-mac works fine. Somehow I got the idea to check it with one of the original canon camera-to-USB cables from a friend - and voilà, it works like a charm.

Now, what could be the bloody difference between a Canon USB-to-USBmini cable and a stock USB-to-USBmini cable?? Any ideas? Since both work fine with a mac I am lost here... Thanks!

[tooki]

Perhaps the third-party cable doesn't route through power. Seems bizarre nonetheless.

tooki

[Ambassadeur]

Originally Posted by tooki

Perhaps the third-party cable doesn't route through power. Seems bizarre nonetheless.

Since power is not provided to the camera in either situation, I am not sure this would be the reason for the bizarre behaviour. But maybe it serves as some sort of indicator..?

The only explanation I came up with is the cable length and therefore signal strength. The third party cable is some 10-12 feet long while the Canon one is only 4 feet. Maybe the photo connector uses pretty weak/weird signals? But then again, why would we have USB specifications?!