I have the panasonic HDC-SD5 and iMovie '08 quits on startup while connected via the usb port. Running Jas 10.4.9 kernel -- updated to 10.4.10.



Console log reports


Update: I have noticed the same problem while simply inserting the SD card in the card reader. As a matter of fact final cut pro 6.01 crashes the same way when i attempt to import via the log and transfer option. The fat32 formatted SD card gets mounted correctly. I still think the problem lies with the movie clips being on removable media and for some reason iMovie / FCP bail when they see the avchd file structure on a mass storage device.

Please any help?

Bump.
Any suggestions?

I have the same happening when I plug my Sony HDR-SR1 into my Hackintosh and try to launch iMovie '08. iMovie starts up and then just exits and dissapears.

What I see in common is that we both have the Intel BADAXE2 mobo ???

I have the same issue with CANON HG10 AVCHD HDD video cam. My mobo is GA-G33M-DS2R.

JFYI: I found that "/usr/sbin/setregion" tool has the same error message ("getting a reference..."). It may relates to driver configuration (ah.. for DVD or any mutimedia devices or whatever). I can't get any futher, and is almost giving up.

Seems as though this is quite an issue.

@izo, this driver related issue you speak of, you think we could narrow it down? Perhaps find the root of the problem?

@Vinnie-The-Phoo, I really doubt this is related to the bad axe 2 motherboard. Others are experiencing the same with different configurations.

Just as an update, I installed the 9a581 version of Leopard on my bad axe 2, same issue. Console reports on iMovie '08 startup & crashes:



We need some expert help here.

I have the same issue with my Sony HDR-SR7, getting same error message on console. Dont think it has anything to do with the cam model, I tried creating an image file, copying the contents of the cam's hard drive and then mounting the image, and iMovie crashes with the same error. Must be something related to AVCHD and external drives maybe?. On the other hand iPhoto worked fine when I extracted some photos made with the same cam.
Im running mac.nub 10.4.10 on a dfi 975xg motherboard.

Must be something related / specific to the hackintosh, driver or kext related. People over at the apple discussions have it working with iMovie '08 so I would say it's not an apple specific bug.

pm me please if you ever figure this one out; you seem a lot more motivated (no workarounds eh) and i don't watch the forum much.

humm... I am suspecting that there may be something wrong with CPU name detection and/or sound card configuration. This is just my silly hunch.

AVCHD is supported only on Intel Mac. I saw error message when I tried to feed AVCHD to iMovie on my G5, saying something like "You must buy Intel Mac now..":-)

My machine shows "CPU Unknow" both on about this Mac and System profiler. I have not configured internal sound device. This thought is completely false, if there is someone who has the same issue on a machine on which CPU name is properly detected and internal sound is working properly though.

Yeah, we need experts...

Been searching over at the forums at osx86scene and it appears as though some other individual experience the exact same error but with iDvd. I PMed him to provide some more feedback on his problem. The reply to his post hinted at EFI being the problem. If that is the case, I wouldn't know where to look to resolve this. Looks to me to be kernel related.

By the way, I installed Quicktime 7.3 on Leopard. Same issue.

That would make some sense; iDVD is the one application I cannot run on my Hack (JaS 10.4.8 upgraded to 10.4.9). It's supposedly crashing on startup (it wasn't even provided in the JaS install if memory serves). I didn't know it was related to EFI (bypass). Since we don't have it (EFI), it may never work on Hackintosh; it's too obscure an issue so it won't get kernel hacker time. I tried quicktime 7.3 as well to no avail.

I have an additional workflow workaround for you, one that doesn't involve any hardware. It does involve Windows (VMware Fusion is fine). You have a Sony cam don't you?

so...
1. get hold of Sony Vegas Pro 8.0a
1.5 install it in Fusion; this way you can use shared folders between OS X and WinXP
2. Import your AVCHD clips; Media Manager is great
3. if you happen to like it (the NLE), that's that - it is quite capable, but annoys me for some reason.
3.5 basic trimming and clip selection in Vegas

4. ...this is the way to FCP --->
5. You have two options:
5.a) render out to uncompressed in a QT container (u need to install Quicktime on WinXP) -- huge pain in the butt(space) - 15 sec of AVCHD --> 2,2 GB uncompressed; you better have stripped RAID0
5.aa) this time in OS X use Compressor to transcode to ProRes 422 HQ. Don't deinterlace in Compressor, not so good. Now you're at the same place as if you paid for Mac hardware. You need to get all the settings right (watch out for pixel aspect ratio).

5. Okay, this is the MXF route. Render out your clips in Vegas as Sony MXF; use a Custom preset (save with new name) bumping the bitrate to 35 Mbps.
5.bb) Guess what, the above is XDCAM HD, so what follows is the XDCAM HD workflow for FCP.
5.bbb) get XDCAM_Transfer_1.1.dmg from the Sony site. Sony apparently has nonstandard MXF so it needs to be rewrapped(?) with this tool for FCP to see the clips.
This is where I'm at right now, trying to get this otherwise simplistic tool to do what it's supposed to do; maybe I'm tired...
I can see the clips in the XDCAM Transfer tool, ex:
Filename: 059.mxf
Video format: MPEG HD (I believe this is long GOP MPEG2, no longer AVC)
Bit rate: 35 Mbps (VBR)

but pressing Import doesn't seem to generate new clips. I'll update when I have it working, it's probably about which directories it's configured to write to. I'll have to read the user guide...

I have a panasonic cam, the HDC-SD5. Does Sony Vegas Pro work with any AVCHD SD fat32 formatted card? The format should be identical to that of the panasonic.

only sony cams...surprise surprise
let me know if you ever get Log and Transfer working...

I have sony cam no problem, I have iLife no prob the only problem I have is that Apple DVD player would shut down if I play mounted DVD's like iso, img, dmg, but my DVD works fine if I insert regular DVD into DVD rom, so weird issue isn't? also inTiger no problem so it cannot be CPU or Sound, or IDVD or Ilife in general. I am running Brazil Leo,

@NewGuyhere, am I to understand that you have a sony SD card based AVCHD cam and you can import video from iMovie '08 with no problems? If so, what is your setup, release, kernel?

Well, iDVD works fine without any issue on my Kalway 10.4.10. iMovie also works greatly most of the case. The only issue around iMove is the problem what we have been discussing here (crash upon importing AVCHD).I read an article that said Sony Vegas Pro can deal with only Main profile H.264. Although Sony's AVCHD cam records videon with Main profile. However, both of Panasonic and CANON record video in High profile H.264. Therefore, Vegas can't handles AVCHD from these High profile AVCHD video cams.

Ok finally some good news...

I got iMovie'08 to import AVCHD footage provided that the following requirements are met

1) You have a Panasonic HDC-SD5 with the bundled DVD burner

2) You have installed iMovie'08 and have updated to 7.1

3) You have installed Leopard (I have had success with BrazilMac's patches)

Don't know why this didn't occur to me sooner...
You must first backup your footage to a DVD using the bundled DVD burner. Once done, you can insert the disc into your drive and fire up iMovie. It will detect your disc as a digital camera and prompt you with the import window which will allow you to import individual clips or all clips at once. The reason why you require Leopard is simple. The bundled DVD burns your discs using the UDF file system which Leopard supports and Tiger does not. So there you have it. I don't mind burning my footage to DVD first before importing, actually I think that it's the perfect workflow to get going. You will always have your raw AVCHD footage archived for preservation.

The mere fact that the importing works with a AVCHD DVD rather then with an SD / USB / Disc Image may signal a low level driver issue.

I have not tried Final Cut Pro Log and Transfer as of yet.

Update: Great news! SD / USB / Disc Image importing now with iMovie '08 with Leopard and the pc-efi patch!

Update: Super news! Final Cut Pro Log and Transfer works too!

Update Nov.16th: Final Cut Pro now imports AVCHD footage from HDC-SD5 at the correct aspect ratio, no longer at 2560x1080. Must update FCP 6.0.2.

Cheers!

Great Post! Same SD5 Owner right here~* I've got it running on my 10.4.11 with pci efi patch too.
Just for instance, my current OS X architecture was updated from JaS 10.4.8 to 10.4.10 >>pci efi patch>>online updated to 10.4.11
mach_kernel and AppleSMBIOS.kext were updated through Software Update directly. The only thing I've kept was dmos.kext

kudos to joeljones for figuring out it was pc-efi.

yhXDEV: I'm where you were at, (JaS 10.4.8), but leery to make any changes to my editing workstation, for fear of screwing up. but then I want AVCHD directly to ProRes...soo.
I won't bother with Leo until they get QE going, so i need one critical piece of advice from you.

What exactly did you do to upgrade to 10.4.10? (link in forum is fine)
Must I have 10.4.10 for the pc-efi patch? (which I did get from IRC but not installed)?

I currently run an "old" 10.4.8 kernel (from Nov 2006) with the system upgraded to 10.4.9 through Online Update. I tried a later kernel at some point and that didn't work for me. I always put off the online update to 10.4.10, again for fear of screwing something up. As you can see I'm heavily invested in my config.

sorry for highjacking the thread a bit.

Cloud9

I have the same issue with a Canon HG10 on both iMovie and Final Cut. The HG10 does not have a DVD burner option. Can I just copy the files I need to work with to a DVD and if so what folders do I copy over?

BTW I have a BadAxe2, Leopard 10.5.1, EFI v52, Vanilla Kernel

iMovie'08 is not working at HACKINTOSH KALYWAY LEOPARD 10.5.1 intel SSE2 and SSE3!
How to solve the problem?

Working only iWeb, iPhoto, iDVD and GarageBand.

same for me,
sony hdr-fx1, iMovie 08, and Leopard don't work.

no problems with kalyway 10.4.10, hdr-fx1 and iMovie 08

Yep, iMovie seems to be a no go right now with Kalyway's Leopard... no good.

My mistake, it runs fine after a Software Update.

How did you mange a software update. I tried updating both iMovie and iPhoto (downloaded from the apple.com site) and get the same error:
"An eligible iMovie application was not found in the location /Applications."
Yet both iMovie & iPhoto are there. I can't check iMovie's current version as it won't launch, but iPhoto is 7.0 (332), and the update package is for 711.
Anyone have any ideas?

I'm using iLife '08.

EDIT: Sorry, never mind, I found the Update Software link in the Finder, and updated everything. That worked perfectly, now both iMovie & iDvd work fine.

iMovie doesn't run on my kalyway 10.5.2 hackintosh. iLife 08 update installed (don't know if it worked before the update).
i also don't have any picture in iDvd - changing themes leaves the screen black.

I have the Panasonic SDR-H40 and regularly "back up" the HDD via USB using Disk Utility and making a DMG image of the camcorder HDD. It is a relatively quick process and may be a workaround burning the DVD since you can later mount the DMG.
Unfortunately, I am not able to import my clips directly since I need the TIME/DATE stamp on all of my video. I have to import the analog video "old school" through a capture appliance.

Now, if someone can direct me to an app or plugin that can read the metadata time/date from the file and imbed the time/date into the video or subtitle it, I am all ears!

I have Panasonic SD1 but I haven't bundled DVD burner. Is it possible to use AVCHD in such situation?

Anyone found a solution to this problem with Kalyway 10.5.2? Anytime that I hook my AVCHD camcorder, iMovie quits unexpectedly. Same behavior on final cut pro!

After updated iMovie runs fine,.
But i don't have Cam to try

iMovie starts up fine with my setup and Kalyway 10.5.2 but but the screen that is supposed to pop up so I can import files from my video camera doesn't come up. I'm not sure if it is because of the program or if my firewire port isn't working. In the system profiler, my Fireworks port does show up. Any clue? Thanks.

I have the same issue and I think I know what the error is!
Your graphics cards are not compatible with iMovie.
Hope this fixes your problems!
Machead.

Well its nothing to do with the video card... it took me a few hours to trace the problem and the fix. I am using Kalaway 10.5.2 - full up to date on iMovie - all you need to do is install the latest AppleSMBIOS and reboot - AVCHD import works perfectly. You can get details of the download and install here:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...101902&st=0

Happy filming...

AppleSMBIOS did the trick for me! I was having the same crash on importing AVCHD from my Canon HF100, now everything is behaving perfectly. Thanks!