Buy FCE? Mixed formats? Mixed bit-rates?

Hello All,
History:
I ran into a very depressing reality about a year ago in iMovie (9). I came to realize that the project I spent months on had dv video with mixed 12 & 16. I ended up with the most depressing sound issues. I don't want to get into the history now and here. I am very tired of people telling me that I needed to record at 16, etc. etc. I know that now but that doesn't do anything to the large number of video files I have, some in 12 and some in 16. I have way too many to export back to the dv and reimport at 16. I am not hung up on the sound quality... if its a little fuzzy, fine. I can deal with that much better that it utterly messing up my "art" and basically stopping me in my tracks from doing what I want to do.
To complicate things, I no longer use that camcorder that I bought a decade ago. I now have Canon Vixia HF S200 (Imovie 9 support says: Canon VIXIA HF S200 - AVCHD dile format - Issues w/ Memory Video stabilization limitations and Filming in Cinema or 24p mode more... ).
I have spent hours and hours perusing forums, blogs, etc trying to figure out how to deal with my dv files with mixed bit-rates. But I still have no idea what program could help me with that...
1. First I was looking for a video converter to convert all my dv in 12 bit to 16 bit. I don't want a lesson in what I should have done... Is this possible? Can I just take my 12 bit .dv file and convert to .mov in 16? Quicktime Pro? Roxio? In FCE? I really need confirmation on this.
2. Do I even need to do #1? Does FCE allow me to use video in Avchd, avi, mov, dv (IN 12 BIT AND 16 BIT) in one project? If not, what would one suggest? (that is for a hobbiest and doesn't need the highest quality but maybe simplest route?)
3. I can "make do" in iMovie, but would be excited to get at least FCE for more options and expand my hobby/desire in art. I'd like ideas on how to move forward in the most effective and logical way. We are pretty slow in our house to modernize. We just got a PS3, but don't plan on burning to blu-ray, at least not yet as a lot of our family doesn't have it and I will burn to standard DVD and youtube most often. I understand that my HD camcorder might have to be dumbed down in quality (still better than what I had)? So thoughts with that might be useful before I get too far ahead of myself but also leave myself room for growth.
I hope on spending $250 to get what I want need. But if there is a much more streamline way to deal with this for $500 or $1000, taxes are coming back, and I could make it work even if it stings, a lot. And although I don't really want to (or am I able to) spend money on this, this is my main hobby and my familiy depends on my renderings as well for preservation of family history, etc. Please advise.
Thanks in advance!

I am neuviemmefemme too...
When I wrote:
I don't want a lesson in what I should have done...
What I mean is each time I have gone searching and read blogs of others who have this same problem or when I have asked for help, all I had found was the response "well you should have recorded at 16 bit". Yes, gotcha. Noted. I am continually learning from my mistake because I am only learning from trial and error, self-direction, manuals, and people telling me what I have done wrong. But, if all one EVER says is "well you shuda recorded at 16 bit audio" and no constructive help on how to work with the error of having all this video with 12 bit audio and to move forward, I'm not going to get anywhere. I got it, I recorded at 12 and should have at 16. (I don't even have a camera that records in 12 bit anymore...) And yet, I am still stuck with hours and hours of digital video embedded with 12 bit audio and an extensive project that I spent months on that will be tossed in the trash if I can't figure out how to convert videos with 12 bit audio to 16 (or find out if it is even possible and with what software) so that all the video clips can co-exist in this project together (all in the 16 bit range).
So back to your constructive help - I'm finally getting somewhere. You are saying that QuickTime Pro will allow me to convert my .dv files with 12 bit audio to another video format that has 16 bit audio. (AIFF suggested?). Should I expect a loss in sound quality? (which is fine, just curious).
I do not understand when you say the iMovie captures as DV (.dv) stream and FCE cannot use that format w/o conversion. I thought that iMovie projects could go directly into FCE for further editing, etc? Will the project be prompted to be converted? I am not understanding this...
In your second point, you write that FCE works natively with DV (quicktime) and AIC. Does AIC=AIFF? In 1 you mention that I should convert to AIFF so that FCE can work with it natively?
It seems I need further understanding of the different file formats. I haven't been able to fully understand what makes the different formats names different other than some work in some and some work in others, but it doesn't make much sense to me and I'm not really sure what will work in one or the other? Is there a resource that explains this well?
And finally, FCE doesn't work with .mov or .avi? ("All other formats must be converted prior to importing into an FCE project"?)
Thank you very much for your help
Message was edited by: mkusafr
Message was edited by: mkusafr

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--forwarded note below from original post----
sandhya <[email protected]> wrote:
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Calm down, calm down . . . everything is OK.
Canon's 60i and 30p are both the same frame rate . . . 30fps. (Ignore the 29.97 as it is the daft American system and can be regarded as 30fps)
It's just that the 60i has 2 interlaced fields (don't worry about it!) per frame whereas 30p has 2 identical fields (equivalent to one field) per frame.
If you are interested you can read about interlaced and progressive frames in Wikipedia!
Suffice it to reiterate, they are both 30fps.
It would make sense in future to have all cameras set to the same although it shouldn't make any difference.
NOTE: Over the past few years a number of cameras have included a "60p" setting (note the "p").
This is 60fps and shouldn't be mixed with 60i or 30p

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