Re: Camcorder as a playback deck.

I’m not an expert on this. I did get a bunch of Belkin 4 port hubs for a school’s video lab. A couple of them failed. The ones that failed: neither the computer nor the camera ended up with fried ports. I did not have a port isolator between computer and hub. Students are careless or worse with equipment. The 4-pin connector, which goes into the camera, does not carry power but can still shock the camera’s port with static. I don’t know if the isolator helps in this regard. There are higher end hubs like Kramer VS-4FW 4 Port Fire Wire Repeater/Hub, which claims to prevent static charges and claims it allows for safe hot swapping. If so, it would be worth it. You can find the Belkin for about $40 and the Kramer for about $90. Kramer is the same company as comprehensive, which makes pro quality cables. If you look on bhphoto you’ll see a number of these Spark-Guard circuitry Kramer/comprehensive products. But I have no experience with them and have not read that this does the trick. But I have used comprehensive cables and they are excellent.

OSX 10.5.3; MAC PRO 2 X 2.8 GHZ (EARLY 2008); FCP Suite; Sony camcorder vx2000/pd170;Canon xl2; Pana consumer cams; write professionally for a variety of media;teach video production in L.A.