Hi,
Whats your operating system? OS X? Vista? XP?

ahoy,

maybe one of these drivers would help?
http://www.panasonic.com.au/support/downloads/file_type_results.cfm?fileTypeID=1&productCategoryID=174&productID=6294

good luck and all the best,
bert

Your alternative solution is to remove the SD memory card from the cam corder and put it into an SD card reader in your laptop or any laptop you can find with an SD card reader in it and then you can transfer the files onto a USB memory stick or external/internal hard drive simply by dragging and dropping them across.

Another option is to find a digital photo processing shop that could do it for you...
Camera shop? Chemists? Computer shop?

Hi hi!

Ich weiß ja nicht genau wo Du auf der Panasonic Webpage geguckt hast, aber hier das dürfte er sein:

http://www.panasonic.com.au/support/downloads/file_type_results.cfm?fileTypeID=1&productCategoryID=174&productID=6294

Hope so!

LG Eric

סקייפ

Hi guys!

Thank you so much for the quick responses. I'm actually using OS X on my Mac. Weitweitweg_productions and riggi84 I tried out those links you kindly sent and they were for WIndows unfortunately. Its such a nightmare! Any other suggestions?

Hi,

afaik the camcorder can be recognized automatically on osx. Did you connect the camcorder via USB with AC power connceted and set the camcorder to playback mode? Also, iMovie may not open automatically - did you try to manually open it?
Also, does iPhoto work (maybe it tries importing)?

Hi

Looking at the manual (which talks about Windows only - bah!) the camcorder should be recognised by OSX as a simple memory card reader and auto mount the SD-card on the desktop as an extra drive.

From your posts I will assume that this is not happening.

Make sure the camcorder has mains power (manuals makes a point of saying t should be connected) your OSX user has admin rights and have a look if the camcorder is listed in the disk utility (Hard drive/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility). If it is select it and click the mount option in the menu. Be sure not click anything else - don't want to erase the SD-card by accident.

Otherwise...

As previously suggested your best option would appear to be to go out and spend £10/€20 on an USB SD-Card reader.
These come in all sizes and shapes and if you do decide to buy one look for one which says "High Speed USB", as opposed to Full Speed USB.

Hope this helps.

Kind Regards

Malte

Hi

Looking at the manual (which talks about Windows only - bah!) the camcorder should be recognised by OSX as a simple memory card reader and auto mount the SD-card on the desktop as an extra drive.

From your posts I will assume that this is not happening.

Make sure the camcorder has mains power (manuals makes a point of saying t should be connected) your OSX user has admin rights and have a look if the camcorder is listed in the disk utility (Hard drive/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility). If it is select it and click the mount option in the menu. Be sure not click anything else - don't want to erase the SD-card by accident.

Otherwise...

As previously suggested your best option would appear to be to go out and spend £10/€20 on an USB SD-Card reader.
These come in all sizes and shapes and if you do decide to buy one look for one which says "High Speed USB", as opposed to Full Speed USB.

Hope this helps.

Kind Regards

Malte

Hi there,

I'm no techie, but maxvre975 might be onto something.

Perhaps try putting the SD card into another one of your gadgets and then transferring the data from there.

Your N95 has an SD card slot (http://www.nokia.co.uk/A4344017), as does your 3 Skypephone (http://threestore.three.co.uk/payg/Default.aspx?id=1267) - although that's a micro SD card. Lastly, if you have a handheld digital camera, try popping it in there.

Hope you manage to sort something out ...

J

jonathanmwatson has a good point, if the camcorder wont connect, do you have any other device that IS connecting that will also take the flash memory card from your camcorder and allow you to copy the files across?

Option 3 and option 4

3. Flag down the nearest stranger with a laptop and ask them if they have an SD drive built in, also described as a pcmcia flash media controller. Also you will need a USB device to get the files off their laptop once moved.

4. You're on a big ship? Modern ships have computers and technicians. Explain what you are doing to the personnel regarding the skype challenge etc and that you need to speak to a computer tech asap. If anyone can help you out they can.

Just to clarify,
Done a bit more researching and it seems that most macbooks and mac air's do not have a built in flash card reader, where as most modern PC laptops (Windows types) do have an in-built card reader. As a temp solution find someone with a PC laptop with said card reader.

Regarding your original problem, has the camcorder ever connected successfully to the mac? Appearing as an extra drive? When was the last time this was working ok? And have you made any changes since regarding drivers and installing new software etc? Or is this the first time this trip that you have had need to offload all the files?

Have you tried a different USB port on the mac? If your USB ports are playing up, have the camcorder attached and turned on first, THEN turn on your mac. Sometimes when windows is not behaving itself and not detecting my usb devices, restarting the laptop with the device attached and turned on works wonders as it does a hardware check during the operating system start up. The mac may do the same. If the operating system has crashed in the past, it can corrupt driver files and USB devices simply don't appear any more when plugged in. Although this issue would probably affect ALL usb devices you try to plug in, so if some are working but the camcorder isn't then that rules that out.

Hope you get sorted.

OK yes i must be really bored tonight

Read the following discussion, you are not alone in your problem

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6689858�

One person suggested the following:

"I don't have a chance to try it at the moment with mine, BUT I seem to remember it being mentioned that if you have both movies and stills on your Panny's card, that the stills may interfere with importing the movies.

So copy the stills into iPhoto, and then DELETE them from the camcorder. (..You'll find that they're stored in a different folder on the card from the movies folder).

When you've deleted the stills, try importing the movies into iMovie again. It ought to work. "

Others said that didn't work.
Most said their cam originally did work but after upgrading OS X it stopped working

Lots and lots of people cracking up with their panasonic camcorder not working with OS X

http://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa?search=Go&q=panasonic+hdc+sd5+cam+corder

Sorry had to remove question marks at end for correct link format

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6689858

other possible solutions

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7254160

"
..also, depending on the speed of your processor, it may take some time for iMovie to recognize the camera and generate the thumbnails for import. I recommend that you connect it with USB, AC Power. Start iMovie, then switch to PC/Playback mode.

Then let it sit there for 15 minutes and see what happens.

If it works correctly, an import screen will come up. You should not have to use the FInder or File/Import at all.

My only other idea is to make sure you are in sync between the camera and iMovie. Are both set on PAL? or are both set on NTSC?

One other idea. Open iPhoto before connecting the camera. See if it tries to import into iPhoto, and then shut iPhoto down. Then continue with iMovie.

Thanks AppleMan. I finally got it to import. I left iMovie open for some time without camera connected while I was messing around. Then I connected the camera turned it on and up popped the import box. I decided to try again to make sure it wasnt a fluke but frustratingly no cigar!!! So I then connected and turned on the camera with iMovie open and left for a couple of minutes and then clicked on the connect to camera button and it worked and I imported!!! A bit flaky isn't it do you have the same problems? Thanks.

"

You're bound to find the answer on the apple forums.

Good luck

Hello again! Thanks for the suggestions again.

I don't have an AC cable for the camcorder.

I do have a SD card reader though and I have been trying that. But when I put the card reader in the movie files just don't appear. Its as if the computer isn't picking up the file type. Thats why I think I need drivers.

maxvre975 I am going to try leaving the card in for 15 minutes in iMovie and she if they come up.

Wish me luck!!

OK more digging today. Think I found an answer.

Your camcorder records files in the AVCHD format which is not natively supported by OS X at the moment. This may be where your problem is coming from. Drivers for the camcorder do not exist as far as I can tell.

Please go here and download the trial version of voltaic:

http://shedworx.com/?q=volmac-home

It is restricted to 10 transfers and a max 20Mb file but let me know if it can see your movie files and transfer them. If so, you will have to buy it for $30 (£15) in order to transfer your footage and convert it into imovie08 format.

Interesting article here
http://suburbia.org.uk/blog/2007/07/28/175003.html
explaining how to edit AVCHD files on OSX. You need Final Cut Pro or Toast9 but these are expensive options if you don't already have them (£900 ???). Voltiac seems to be the cheaper option if it works for you.

Final Cut pro 6.0.1+ supports AVCHD footage but only works on Intel processor macs.
Toast9 is technically tricky to use.

Your most direct, cheapest and fastest option seems to be voltaic. This may be why OS X is not seeing the files on the SD card.

Make sure you have all the latest OS X updates installed and the latest updates of imovie etc etc.