How do I get the Movies off my new Sony Handycam using iMovie?

Question

WOW! I didn’t think that this would be such an issue!
So, I purchase a new Sony Handycam DCR-SR42 with a 30 GB
Hard Drive in it. I ask the sales person “Is this camera compatible
with my G5 Mac?” He says, it sure is! I take it home record the kids
around the house, and my daughter’s ballet recidal. COOL!
Then I go and try and downlaod the movies to my Mac. I come to
find out that the 2 cds that came with the camera are pretty worthless!
Sony states in one of the bullet points in the instruction manuel
that the software on the cd will not work on a Macintosh computer.
So, I figured, NO big deal, I will be using iMovie! Unfortunately
iMovie does not recognize the camera when I hook it up, because
it can only hook up using a USB connection. It doesn’t even offer
a Firewire connection, and iMovie ONLY recognizes Firewire.
I then find on one of the cds, a PDF of the Handycam Handbook.
It states in the PDF, that Mac users need to open the disk icon
on the desk top for the camera, and copy the files from the camera
to my hard drive. So I follow the steps and do this. Then I go to
open one of the files using Qucktime, and I get an error message
stating that Quicktime cannot open the file because it could not
parse it -2048!?!?!
Next, I go to the Apple web site to see if I can find anything to
resolve all this. I find an article “iMovie does not work with muxed
MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 clips” In the article it states that if the files
are MPEG2 Muxed files, iMovie can not support them!
I come to find out that the files are MPEG2 Muxed files. It seems
that the newer camcorders are using this format, because the files
are heavily compressed to allow the camera to cram more data
on the hard disk. The problem is you need some kind of software
to decompress these files in order to use them, and Sony doesn’t
include it for the Mac!
After more research I find - QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback on the
Apple web site. I purchase it for $19.99 from the site hoping this
will be the answer. Nope! It allowed me to open the movies in
QuickTime, and copy them into iMovie but they are only the
video portion. They have NO audio!
Anyone else run into this whole pile of BS?!?!!? If so, were you
able to figure out a work around? Or, are you stuck with a cool
camera full of movies, with NO way of getting them off with
sound? Well. unless you find someone with a PC that has
a DVD burner in it! Man, that thought scares the ---- out of me!
°Jeff Camp
camper
G5   Mac OS X (10.3.9)  

Answer 1

Get a nice Sony miniDV camcorder. It is not too expensive; it is small and easy to carry around to shoot your video. Most importantly, it will be instantly compatible with iMovie. You don't have to install any software, just connect it via FireWire (Sony calls this iLink) and you are good to go!
I have had several Sonys and love them. You don't need one with fancy editing capabilities because you will edit your movies in iMovie. Just be sure that it has AV In and Out so you can import and export back to the camcorder.
My current version is the small DCR HC-26. There are newer versions of that HC-30something and 40something. Look at the specs on Sony's website
Some of them require the use of a dock to import and export. I am not really fond of that feature. I like just connecting directly to the camera.