FireWire Capture with JVC GY-HD100

A few years ago I purchased a used JVC GY-HD100 that had a broken firewire output. I recently sent the camera to United Camera in Illinois to have it completely fixed so I could start capturing tapes via firewire.

Knowing now that the firewire ports were susceptible to frying I was extra careful to only plug the cord in when the computer and camera were both turned off. That said, I am still unable to capture footage from my camera. (I also have purchased a brand new firewire cable so I doubt thats the issue.) United Camera claims to have entirely replaced the main board so everything should be as if it was brand new.

I've searched every single message board on the internet that references the camera (honestly, I'm not exaggerating) and have yet to found a solution. I've tried to connect the camera with both my brand new iMac (via a firewire adapter), and my Macbook pro and neither even detect the camera as being connected. On both of those computers I've tried Final Cut Pro, OnLocation, and Premiere CS5.

In my research I found some had more promising results on PCs so I dusted off my old desktop from the closet. That desktop is at least 5 years old but I did have limited success with it. If the camera is put in regular DV mode the computer will detect it and I'm able to capture via Sony Vegas. This is hardly helpful though as all the footage I have is in HD.

As soon as I put the IEEE switch to HDV the connection is lost and the computer no longer detects anything as being plugged in.

As far as settings, I've tried everything combination I can think of on both my PC and through the camera's menu settings. I also updated the firmware from JVC and have found no difference in results.


Any ideas on where I might go from here would be life saving. My only thought now is to send it back to United Camera and have them try again but I've lost all faith in them as the first "repair" took 2 weeks longer than they promised. It also doesn't really help my current situation of needing to capture 5 hours of footage for clients.

I will name my firstborn child after anyone that has a successful answer to my problem.