How to make a slide show or edition including mpeg and other formats

Question

Hi,
I am i bit puzzled by the use of iphoto/imovie/itunes.
I have a Sony camera which generates jpg photos and mpg videos; besides, i have 3gp and mp4 videos from cell phones.
Firstly, i imported all of them to iphoto. I used a automator workflow to help importing from hotsynced Palm centro files, to discover the first problem with the 3gp files: they could not be iported by workflows.
Still, they could be seen in iphoto, but then i tried to make a slide show. My idea was to put the photos and videos of a certain event to be watched together, or at least to be able to watch the videos in a sequence, without having to click on each one.
I didnt get it in iphoto, so i switched to imovie. it was even worse, since it cannot import the mpgs and the 3gps (the jpg photos were ok). What could i do about that? is there any converter or other way?
then i tried the itunes, and it was the opposite: it imported and played in sequence the mpg videos, but not the photos. This is a workaround anyway, since the program expects to play movies, and makes my daughter a "star", but that`s ok, she is one to me.
i'll be thankful for hints on how to make the imovie compatible with the 3gp and mpgs, or finding some way to do this edition in iphoto or even with itunes.
regards

Answer 1

I see, it sounds reasonable , i think i will buy the pro and try.
QT Pro ($30) and MPEG Streamclip (free) complement each other. In many cases one can do things that the other cannot. For instance, MPEG Stramclip can handle/edit multiplexed formats while QT Pro cannot. QT Pro allows layering of data tracks while Streamclip does not. Streamclip merges file streams more easily than QT Pro but QT Pro allows the "Movie to MPEG-4" export to "passthrough" the video while Streamsclip does not. And so on and so forth...
I was referring to the mpegs from the Sony camera, of which a have hundreds, shot in the last 3 or 4 years, mainly from my 5-year old daughter. Is the above true to these?
That still doesn't help. By "sony camera," are you referring to a still digital camera (multiplexed MPEG-1) or a Sony video camcorder taking MPEG-4/AVCHD with AC3 audio in an MPEG wrapper, a Sony DVD/HDD camera storing some kind of MPEG-2/AC3 files. On a Mac, the extension MPG normally refers multiplexed MPEG-1 (or MPEG-1 audio layer) files while MPEG normally refers to multiplexed MPEG-2 video content with MPEG-1, layer 2 audio (MPEG2/MP2) but may also refer to files with MP3 or AC3 files in an MPEG, VOB, or TS wrapper. In addition it may loosely refer to elementary M2V video streams (M2V video file paired with a separate AIFF or AC3 file), a standard MPEG4/AAC file (in an MOV or MP4 wrapper) or a standard H.264/AAC file in MOV, MP4, or M4V wrapper). Since the handling, conversion, editing requirements vary with each type of file, it becomes important to what specific kind of content/file container we are dealing with here.