I've had my jvc camera for a couple of years. Like any DV cam the firewire port is important to transfer footage to the computer. The first week of owning the camera I had to send it to jvc factory service to have the port fixed (DEAD - that way from new...?)
I could not believe how my first call to JVC support tech line went.
JVC was very evasive and said firewire is a unsupported feature, and would not even help me confirm if my new in warranty JVC camera had a problem or not. I would say my first impression from JVC tech line left me with a feeling of someone being rude to brushoff.
After sending the camera to factory service the firewire port was fixed
and it worked good for about a year. Once again bad firewire port. Back to be repaired and fixed again. Now its on it's third dead firewire port.
Now its out of warranty and more than half the price of the camera to fix it.
I'm not a "hot swapper" when using firewire. I make sure the camera is off and connect the cable then power up the camera.
All this time I have a older sony camera with firewire thats has worked fine with this computer and firewire cable.

My question(s) for readers is: Are JVC cameras sensitive to firewire port problems, and How was your experience with factory service ?

P.S. I filled out the service survey form on support.jvc.com and never got a reply...

Although I am not an actual JVC employed engineer, I can say that they are not particularly troublesome as far as electronic failures are concerned, however coupling a JVC camcorder to the PC does not by any means always have a guaranteed to 100% success rate due to compatibility problems.

It would have been interesting to know what was said to have been done when you had the previous repairs carried out, as when the camcorder was put in again for the second time with the same unusual fault, if on subsequent inspection it was suspected by the engineer that the DVi output had been electrically surge damaged, you should really have been contacted and enquiries made as to your operating conditions to enable possible reasons to be ruled out, like for example although you say you dont "hot swap" do you plug / unplug cables in a high static environment such as certain types of carpeting can cause!, or have you some ancillary equipment connected to your PC via USB ports that uses the efficient, lightweight, but in some cases high leakage current SMPS (switch mode power supplies), as I have had instances where equipment with an intermittent odd recurring fault had been caused unwittingly by static or leakage current damage in the environment where it was being used.

The fact that you have had no trouble with the other device is maybe a plus point for it, but some devices are not so prone as others to certain external influences, but it has to be admitted that you could just have been exceedingly unlucky as some pieces of equipment seemed to have been cursed on the production line with a lifetime of odd faults!

It would have been of assistance if you had mentioned the actual model number of the camcorder being referred to.