Downloading Digital Camcorder (Canon HV20) Clips onto an Older iMAC

I have a G4 iMac running OX 10.3.9 and iMovie version 3.0.3. I purchased a Canon HV20 camcorder that uses DV mini tapes. I have connected the camcorder to the iMac using a firewire cable and all the appropriate camera settings (reasonably confident on that issue). However, I cannot import any clips into iMovie because the software does not "see" the camcorder. The message shown is "no camera attached" or words to that affect.
Would greatly appreciate any suggestions. Could it be that the camcorder is not compatible with the old version of iMovie or the older Mac? Or is there something I should be doing so iMovie will import the clips?
Thanks.

I just posted "Edit in 4:3 or 16:9 for classroom TVs?" with a bit of the same issue. My iMac also won't recognize my HV20 when I connect via Firewire. I had all the same experiences as you. And a connection using Canopus ADVC-110 between the HV 20 amd iMac via firewire won't work either. It's just the nature of the beast I'm afraid.
What I'm having to do is connect my HV20 to a several year old Pioneer DVR-320 DVD recorder by way of the "composite" out on the HV 20 to the ins of the 320 to burn a DVD of my tape. I get a not-so-great signal of course because I have to use the composite connection (the HV 20 not having an S-VHS out AND the Pioneer 320 does not recognize the firewire connection from the HV 20 either just like iMovie 4 , and yet the Pioneer 320 has a firewire in !!).
Very luckily the Pioneer 320 has a FW out as well (extremely rare to find on a DVD recorder) and my iMovie 4 DOES recognize the FW connection, so I'm able to play back my Pioneer-burned DVD onto my iMac in standard definition. And I can burn the DVD on the Pioneer 320 using 4:3 format OR 16:9 out of the HV 20, which is the nature of the question I posted earler today. For the moment I'm choosing 4:3, and this is how I'm choosing that format just in case you want to know because it was a little tricky figuring it out.
In the HV-20 in Play mode: PLAYBACK OUT/SET UP 1: AUTO (when I chose DV, it became DV LOCKED and it would not not play back), and then TV TYPE: 4:3
PLAYBACK SET UP 2: choose "DV Locked", which then shows up as "DV" on your LCD screen. But this DV Locked is apparently different (?) from the DV locked in SET UP 1, so it's O.K. See what I mean about it being tricky? Or you could chose HDV/DV which seems to work O.K. too.
Of course I'm lucky to have the Pioneer 320 even though I'm consigned to using composite connections, but I just have to do one last project and I can compromise on the quality a bit. But if I get too much more frustratd, I'm going to get a new iMac with iMovie '09, and just be over with all this standard definiton nonsense because a new Apple will certainly capture the HV 20 in HD format.
Please let me know if you come with something better.

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