Avi files to imovie 08

hi all, just bought ilife 08. looks awesome but have a problem.
all my imported clips from my digital camera are avi files, how do i import them to imovie 08?
in 06 i just imported the files but in 08 i see it's only quicktime files you can import how do i change them and can i do all of them at once?

Does anyone know how to get around this without converting all my mpeg4 movies into mpeg4?
MOV is a generic container. Unfortunately Kodak chose not the use MPEG-4 audio along with the MPEG-4 video. Actually, the MPEG-4 video content is quite acceptable to iMovie '08. It is the µ-Law 2:1 audio that iMovie '08 doesn't like. Basically, you have two options:
1) If you can manually convert the file(s) using the "Export to MPEG-4" pre-set and "pass through" the video while converting just the audio and they will be compatible with iMovie '08, or
2) You can import/drop them into iMovie '06 and let it automatically convert the clips to DV files which are compatible with either iMovie '06 or '08.
Unfortunately, the transfer of files at the Finder level is not the same as "importing/capturing" files from a camera device.

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