Importing sound formats from Digital Cameras

Question

I know this is partly covered elsewhere, but if anyone comes up with a way to import video shot on digital cameras and then saved on iPhoto, please let me know. I have a wonderful Casio Exlim S880, that outputs Quicktime movies direct, but with DVI ADPCM audio -- which iMovie '08 simply rejects. Speaking to Casio engineers in Japan, they rightly see it as Apple's problem.
I know I can convert these movies using iSquint, QT Pro, or iTunes, but to do this over a lot of files is a pain. It SHOULD be possible in iMovie. This major problem aside, I'd be happy with iMovie's lower level capabilities.

Answer 1

Not only are we dealing with apples and oranges here, we're dealing with two entirely different philosophies and reasons for existence!
"..So no one's at fault precisely, but without iMovie having access to high quality input, it defeats its purpose of the software itself being low cost, no?.."
Camera manufacturers are just that: camera manufacturers. They earn their money by selling cameras; making them simple and efficient to use, pretty to look at, and - as Jon says - they aim to "store video in the smallest space possible while retaining reasonable quality". They don't really give a hoot what you do with the video after you've shot it.
..Like Kodak, when their main business was making film: you buy (or bought) the film ..but what you actually used it for (scientific recording, family snaps, wildlife photography, cataloguing postage stamps) they didn't care about.
Apple, on the other hand, doesn't make cameras (though they used to sell some of the first digital snapshot cameras, and the standalone iSight). Their - intangible - product is "ease of use".
That's what Apple sells: "buy our products, and we'll make portable music easy to use; we'll make photo-manipulation easy; we'll make web-browsing easy; we'll make electronic mail easy; we make everything to do with computers easy; we'll make video editing easy".
The camera manufacturers aren't necessarily talking to Apple ..the camera manufacturers go off on their own route, trying to give their individual products Unique Selling Points so that people will buy theirs in preference to another manufacturer's.
They aim to cram as much data as possible into the smallest (physical or virtual) space possible, add pretty design, long battery life, low price, reasonable reliability (so that they don't have to take back faulty devices) with a high profit margin. They want to get their items to market as soon as possible.
They don't want to consult with people in other industries (Apple, in the "ease of use" business), they just want to get their product on shelves.
(..In the case of Sony, and HDV video, there was some involvement with Apple, so that Sony could reassure users - primarily pro and semi-pro users - that the material they shot really could be edited. But miniDV pioneers JVC never bothered with that. And Sony never bothered talking with Apple, I believe, about Sony's "consumer-oriented" microMV format..)
Polaroid, uniquely, never needed anyone else: their film developed by itself, so you didn't need to go to a developing lab to get your pictures done (..though they had other hardware partners; Eumig, for instance, made their Polavision movie hardware). Other camera manufacturers sold cameras, but (apart from Kodak or Fuji-branded cameras) the film developing was always done by a somebody else - you bought a Konica or Olympus or Pentax or Nikon or Canon or Leica or Hanimex or You-Name-It camera; then you bought some film from someone quite different (Agfa, Orwo, Kodak, Ilford, Fuji); then took your pics, then took the film to a third outfit to have the material developed ..the camera manufacturers were far removed from the eventual picture-development process. Kodak introduced new films and new development techniques ..but camera makers were generally uninterested in that; their gaze was on f/stops, lens materials, shutter timing, new materials for camera bodies.
And so it's been with video: camera makers have bought and used chips, lenses, tape transport mechanisms, microphones, and assembled them into their own products, with their own arrangements of sockets, buttons and battery placement and cosmetic designs.
Then they've devised, or licensed, new methods for compressing video, so that more can be crammed into smaller storage, with fewer moving parts, making things cheaper and simpler to build.
The "unravelling" of that compressed audio and video for editing - as distinct from simply plugging a camera into a display for replay - has generally not been the camera manufacturers' worry.
One more analogy: car makers assemble cars. It's generally not been their worry about how roads are made; optimum camber-angles on bends, and coping with surface water run-off, and grading the gravel and asphalt mix for optimum adhesion.
You can't use a car without a surface to drive it on. But I don't think that Toyota and Tarmac devise their products in collaboration with each other.
Camera manufacturers make hardware to pile onto shelves and to sell to people who want some equipment in their hands.
Apple sells an experience: "ease of use". They generally have to react to what the hardware manufacturers are putting on the market ..except when they devise the hardware themselves, as with iPods, iPhones, display screens and Apple TVs. And, of course, Mac computers. By devising and selling both the hardware and the software, they make Macs, iPods and iPhones "easy to use".
But when someone else makes the hardware, and they're constantly changing it, and messing about with the new features, and Apple wants to provide that missing "ease of use" capability, then Apple can't always keep up with new developments as fast as customers would like.
Check the interoperability before you buy! Think what you're buying: are you buying the hardware, or are you hoping to buy the fun and useful experience?
If it's the experience; does the manufacturer provide that experience, or are you likely to need a third-party to provide it ..as with film developing, audio and video processing and editing, having decent roads to drive on, having the right sea-state to sail on?
If it's an experience you're after ..check the whole train of interlocking 'components' before committing yourself and your cash.