Cant Importing video with superdrive

Question

I have alwase used the firewire to import with without problems,I reciently tried to import with the superdrive and also to drag and drop video folders without success. I know the answer must be obovious but not to me. thanks for helping. Hardhead

Answer 1

The files on a DVD are in the final (standard) DVD format of mpeg2, which is heavily condensed and not intended for editing. It therefore involves some quality loss to import those files, convert them, and import them into iMovie. But it can be done:
Insert the DVD in your superdrive, and double click the icon. You now have a folder containing lots of odd sounding files.
You need to convert those VOB files back to DV which iMovie is designed to handle. For that you need mpegStreamclip:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/mpegstreamclip.html
which is free, as well as the the Apple mpeg2 plugin :
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/
which is a mere $20.
(Obviously the foregoing only applies to DVDs you have made yourself, or other home-made DVDs that have been given to you. It will NOT work on copy-protected commercial DVDs, which in any case would be illegal. )
Once they are converted to DV you can import them into iMovie.