IMovie 9.0.4 won't import Sharp miniDV

Hi,
I'm running 10.7.3 on a new iMac with iMovie 9.0.4; using a firewire 800 adapter to plug in the back of the computer. I've got an old Sharp miniDV camcorder--when I click on the camera icon in iMovie I get a bluescreen window, it defaults to DV and all the playback and stop buttons seem to control the camera fine--but when I click import the camera is playing but no data is being imported. Any suggestions?

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Imovie 8.0.6 won't import hd movies

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Can iMovie not have mixed movie types in one project?

IMovie 11 gray clips - won't import to new project after crash

Hi all,
I was importing a load of video, recorded on a Zoom Q3HD (in .MOV format) to iMovie 11. At some point, iMovie crashed and forced me to restart the app. Since then, the clips I'm trying to import are showing up as gray in the clip window. Sometime, scanning over the clips will show thumbnails from a different clip however right now, it is showing me thumbnails of the movies I'm scanning over. I have trashed iMovie thumbnails and cache, done a permissions repair, restarted, checked for updates, even resaved the problem clips in QuickTime, thinking that the format of the clips could be an issue but it made no difference. Not sure what else I can do?? I am unable to drag these gray clips into a new project. Here is a screencast of my issue. Please let me know if you have any suggestions. Thx. Matthew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njlQMpas9aA

What you are seeing may not be a symptom of the clips going bad but instead a symptom of something failing in the Project itself. Especially after a crash with iMovie open, everything is to be suspect. Be very paranoid about all the elements in that project, any one of them could be the source of the problem you are witnessing.
Check out this Discussion Thread from September
I movie quits unexpectedly during editing and publishing
Click on the button near the top of the window where it says Project Library (it toggles between Library and edit Project).
Click just once on the name of the project, so that it highlights in blue.
Go to File Menu > Duplicate Project. There will now be a second project with the same name, but with a number added to the end of the name
Open that duplicated project by double-clicking it
from Jasonryan1. It relates to a corrupted item existing in his project. And in his attempt to troubleshoot it, he suspected it was a Title he placed in the Project itself. Once he deleted the corrupted Title he was able to successfully export it. As to which item is causing instability, that's a tricky process to narrow down. And I would agree it seems unlikely all your projects could have some corrupted element in them. But it might work to concentrate on the simplest project which is showing the symptoms you describe. Duplicate that project and start deleting pieces of it and trying to add a Title to it and see if iMovie crashes. And that's not to say it's a title, it could just as easily be a picture, a transtion or a music clip that's preventing that project from previewing and importing clips properly.
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Delete the iMovie Preferences file:
Go to the Desktop
Click on Go Menu then Choose Library
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Imovie 10.0.3 won't import from a camera that doesn't have a tape

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You need to convert the 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.
Another possibility is to use DVDxDV:
http://www.dvdxdv.com/NewFolderLookSite/Products/DVDxDV.overview.htm
which costs $25.
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Imovie 5: won't import any files!!!!

please help! i'm about to have a baby and i just got all this stuff to record video of him and stuff like that. well, i tried out my imovie software and it won't import any files at all! i have .avi files from other sources and anytime i try to import them into imovie it unexpectedly crashes!! what do i do?!
thanks for your help!
ashley

Hi krypton - have a look here:
http://danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/tips_tricks/6018.shtml
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=232703&tstart=0
http://danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/tips_tricks/6010.shtml
http://www.moviecodec.com/topics/5155p2.html
but especially:
http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/%7Eshmhav/SVCDon_a_Macintosh.html#edit_convertMPEG
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=267352&tstart=0
You may need both of these:
MPEG StreamClip:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/mpegstreamclip.html
Apple MPEG2 PlayBack:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/
Doing a Search of the forum will produce many posts on this topic! Type someting like 'MPEG' into the search box.

I have a an iMac 27" and am trying to import some videos of a friends wedding into iMovie however one of the movies won't import. It doesn't say why or give any error message or codes. All of the other movies on the card download with out a problem.

I have an iMac 27" and am trying to import some videos of a friends wedding into iMovie however one of the movies won't import. It doesn't say why or give any error message or codes.
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The mystery remains....
Thanks for the pointers. The file type is .mts (a proprietry sony one).
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If you could point me in the direction of some free .mts converter software that would be the cherry on the cake.
Thanks

IMovie HD won't import from Sony HDR-HC1

iMovie HD 5.0.2 (111) on my G5 desktop controls, but won't import from, my new little Sony HDR-HC1 1080i DV camcorder. Same was the case with my 12" 1 GHz PowerBook until, at the advice of a Manhattan Beach Genius Bar tech, I did an archive reinstall of 10.4 and a reinstall of iMovie HD on both my G5 PowerMac and G4 PowerBook and then downloaded all the updates. Now my PowerBook works, but my PowerMac still won't import. On an empty second HD in my PowerMac I installed OS 10.4 and iMovie HD ONLY (to create as sterile as possible of an environment), made the 2nd HD my startup drive, and still iMovie HD on my PowerMac will not import from this camera (although it will from an older Sony VX-1000 regular def camcorder).
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Per earlier posts, I tried playing some piano notes in Garage Band, trashing the iMovie preference files, and reinstalling QuickTime (the tech had heard QT 7.0.3 could be at fault from becoming corrupted in certain updating combinations), all to no avail.
HELP!
PowerMac G5 2 x 2.67 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3)

I have had import/capture problems using FW drives with FCE/iMovie5 and my 2gig iMac. My canon GL2 works fine but only when no other FW devices are connected to the FW port I use the computers internal drive to capture. If your using the G5's internal SATA drives this (below) may not apply.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=277702&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=277704&tstart=0
Some G5 users have had to purchase a FW PCI card or have the G5 front FW port replaced. Check this link.
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G5/G5usb_firewirereports.html
Cheers!
Steve

Imovie crashes/won't import

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iMac G5 20 rev. B Mac OS X (10.4.5)

The only thing that makes it work is resetting PRAM everytime. Even then, only 1 of my FW ports will work. The other one always causes iMovie to crash. Unless I have a bad camera, bad RAM, or a bad FW port, it's not anything else on your list because I've checked it. My OS is updated from Thanks for your help. I'm lost.
Also I have updated everything. You mentioned that QT and OS shouldn't be updated. Is this what you meant? If so, do I have to reinstall the OS to go back to the old version? THANKS
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2005-08-18 08:15:17 -0400: Installed "iSync Update" (2.1)
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2005-08-18 08:15:49 -0400: Installed "Security Update 2005-007" (1.1)
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IMovie HD won't import .wmv

my iMovie HD (5.0.2) won't import any .wmv movies.
they either appear toned down in the import window so they're not even an option or yield a screen saying 'The file can't be imported. Unknown error."
it's always worked until i just installed 'Switch' to convert wmas to mp3s --so could this be the cause? i've uninstalled it but still the same issue.
does anyone have any advice?
thank u
emac Mac OS X (10.4.6) 2GB ram

Hi Candy:
Welcome to discussions!
WMV files are Windows files and (forgive me if this sounds rude) i doubt they have ever worked..at least without some type of program to convert them to a files that iMovie understands.
Importing Windows Media or Importing Real Movies
http://www.danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/qt_plugins/3002.shtml
Flip4mac is another way...
http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv.htm
I have heard of Switch Audio converter, but I do not have any first hand experience with that program.
Sue

IDVD5 won't import specific iMovie into project. (Others work fine)

I'm utterly baffled. Over the course of a year I made six short iMovie films composed of a mixture of stills and video set to music. Each time I successfully used iDVD to burn DVDs for grandparents.
I'm now trying to create an omnibus edition with all six films in. I've successfully created a menu using one of the templates and can drag most of the films from finder to iDVD. But one of them just won't import. It still plays fine in iMovie, with no stray files or corruption that I can see. All settings (permissions etc) seem to be identical to the other five movies, but when I drag it across I don't get the green "+" sign indicating that I can drop it onto the menu.
I've eny tried re-importing it from a previously burned DVD using MactheRipper, converting it back to DV format using Streamclip and using that file in iMovie. Same result.
If anyone has any suggestion I'd be most grateful.
I'm using iDVD 5 and iMovie HD.

Hi Bengt,
Thanks for the questions.
a. Plenty. I forget exactly how much, but I had run out once, which caused other problems, so bought an additional HD and moved everything onto that leaving my boot drive as lean as possible.
b. Each is less than 10 minutes, so total duration well under an hour. In any case it's not when I go to add the last one that the problem occurs. And I tried a new iDVD project containing only the problematic movie and it wouldn't work even on its own.
Menu is a single opening with one link to each movie.
c. Can't think that there's any odd formats involved, as all the movies were built up in the same way: photos from iPhoto, film clips imported from DV camera directly into iMovie. Sound track is made up of MP3s, butthen so have all the others AND I've successfully used this movie in iDVD in the past.
Trevor

IMovie Won't Import MP4 Files

For some reason iMovie '11 won't let me import videos. Specifically, I'm trying to add MP4 files that I copied to my hard drive from my GoPro HD 960. For GoPro users, I used the R2 (720p) format. They open properly in QuickTime and VLC but can't be imported into iMovie (or iPhoto). When I select File-->Import-->Movies and browse to the directory where I saved all the .mp4 files on my hard drive, they're all greyed out. And actually, it seems that just about no video files at all on my computer can be added (all greyed out)--even other MP4 files.
I downloaded MPEG Streamclip but that says "unrecognized file format" when I try opening the videos. I also installed Perian and rebooted.
In case it helps:
- I have an Intel MacBook running OS X 10.6.8 with iLife '11
- QuickTime info for the video format says "H.264, 1280 x 720, Millions; AAC, 2 channels, 48000 Hz"
- VLC says "Stream 0 (Video) - Codec: avc1" and "Stream 1 (Audio) - Codec: mp4a"
Any ideas? This is incredibly frustrating!

Why iMovie Won't Import MP4 Files?
Technically, iMovie does import MP4 video. However, iMovie only import MP4 files that are encoded with MPEG4/AAC or H.264/AAC data. And yet, MP4 is a video container format that may contain various audio and video codec (and sometimes even subtitle streams included). If the MP4 file is not encoded with iMovie support codec, iMovie will refuse to import this kind of MP4 video.
How to Solve Can't Import MP4 into iMovie?
In order to successfully import all kinds of MP4 files to iMovie, a recommended solution is to convert iMovie unrecognized MP4 to iMovie supported video format.
iDealshare VideoGo is just the right MP4 to iMovie Converter which can convert various MP4 to iMovie supported MPEG-4, MPEG-2, MOV or DV. Besides converting MP4 to iMovie, iDealshare VideoGo also helps to convert other video formats including AVI, WMV, MPEG, VOB, MOV, AVCHD, MTS, M2T, M2TS, TOD, MOD, XAVC, FLV, MKV, SWF, 3GP, MVI, ASF and etc to iMovie video format.

IMovie won't import from iPhoto (this is different than all the other post)

Before you think, "Oh... this is the typical 'iMovie 7 isn't importing iPhoto movies' question" this isn't. I've looked through a ton of threads and questions trying to find something similar to this.
Q: I have all my digital camera (Canon SD500 camera (not camcorder), no known compatibility issues with Apple) movies, which are in .AVI format, in iPhoto. iMovie is being weird as in it will only import SOME of my camera movies. For some events, it imports ALL the movies in. For some events, it won't import ANY of the movies in. For some events, it will only import SOME of the movies included in it.
If someone responds, "Your camera is incompatible" OR "the file format isn't supported" they should have points deducted from their account because they didn't read anything except for the first sentence and decided I don't know what I'm talking about.
Here's some interesting things that have happened:
1) I found ONE event in question called "Wedding Pictures & Movies" that wasn't showing up in iMovie. The camera we took movies with has other movies in other events that have successfully been imported into iMovie. But anyway, I realized that for some programming languages (I don't know if this is true with iMovie, I doubt it) that the ampersand (&) sign is used in code and shouldn't be used in titling things. So I shortened the name down to "Wedding" and all the sudden (more like after iMovie asked me if I wanted to create the thumbnails for the movies), SOME of my movies were put into iMovie, not all.
2) Upon realizing that either: the event name was too long OR the & sign actually did screw it up, I shortened another event in question from "Reception Pictures & Videos" to simply "Reception". Upon opening iMovie, it never asked to build the thumbnail library with movies from this "Reception" event that I did the exact same thing to as the "Wedding" event.
3) I thought I would try and force iMovie to refresh the thumbnail database (or build thumbnails for another movie again) by taking another movie with said camera above, the same one that I've taken all the other movies with, and imported the movie into iPhoto. Upon opening iMovie, it asked me to build the thumbnail, but only did so for the movie that I just took.
What could be going on that movies from the same camera aren't showing up in iMovie? I can understand other cameras, but these movies are all from the same camera. Some will show up while others will not? Does anyone have a clue what could be going on here?
BTW, the movies have not been edited in any way. They are all still in the exact same format and everything since they were imported into iPhoto.

Before you think, "Oh... this is the typical 'iMovie 7 isn't importing iPhoto movies' question" this isn't. I've looked through a ton of threads and questions trying to find something similar to this.
Q: I have all my digital camera (Canon SD500 camera (not camcorder), no known compatibility issues with Apple) movies, which are in .AVI format, in iPhoto. iMovie is being weird as in it will only import SOME of my camera movies. For some events, it imports ALL the movies in. For some events, it won't import ANY of the movies in. For some events, it will only import SOME of the movies included in it.
If someone responds, "Your camera is incompatible" OR "the file format isn't supported" they should have points deducted from their account because they didn't read anything except for the first sentence and decided I don't know what I'm talking about.
Here's some interesting things that have happened:
1) I found ONE event in question called "Wedding Pictures & Movies" that wasn't showing up in iMovie. The camera we took movies with has other movies in other events that have successfully been imported into iMovie. But anyway, I realized that for some programming languages (I don't know if this is true with iMovie, I doubt it) that the ampersand (&) sign is used in code and shouldn't be used in titling things. So I shortened the name down to "Wedding" and all the sudden (more like after iMovie asked me if I wanted to create the thumbnails for the movies), SOME of my movies were put into iMovie, not all.
2) Upon realizing that either: the event name was too long OR the & sign actually did screw it up, I shortened another event in question from "Reception Pictures & Videos" to simply "Reception". Upon opening iMovie, it never asked to build the thumbnail library with movies from this "Reception" event that I did the exact same thing to as the "Wedding" event.
3) I thought I would try and force iMovie to refresh the thumbnail database (or build thumbnails for another movie again) by taking another movie with said camera above, the same one that I've taken all the other movies with, and imported the movie into iPhoto. Upon opening iMovie, it asked me to build the thumbnail, but only did so for the movie that I just took.
What could be going on that movies from the same camera aren't showing up in iMovie? I can understand other cameras, but these movies are all from the same camera. Some will show up while others will not? Does anyone have a clue what could be going on here?
BTW, the movies have not been edited in any way. They are all still in the exact same format and everything since they were imported into iPhoto.

IMovie 6 was working fine and now it won't import.

I have started importing my vhs home movies and everything was almost fine and now it won't import at all. imovie stops at times. Sometimes when a tape was being imported I wouldn't get audio even with moving the volume bar but the audio was there with playback in imovie. I import a few clips, edit the starts and stops and share them with Quicktime. After I have them saved in Quicktime I copy them to an external hard drive and trash the originals. At times I can save them on the external without first saving them on the main hard drive and sometimes I can rename the clips. All of the problems mentioned above are just annoying ones but now.... I open imovie and select a new project, the imovie screen is light blue and it says that the camera is connected. In just a few seconds the screen turns a darker blue which then changes to the video I want to import with out the audio. When I click on "import" nothing happens.. no clip starts or anything. How do I get imovie working again?

I did what you said to do.. remove preference and repair permissions.. and imovie is still doing the same thing. I also deleted a preference named com.apple.IMovie.plist.saved. When I started having the import problem earlier I had checked the disk and repaired the permissions.
After I did what you said and IMovie was still not working I shut down the computer and took out the battery hoping that would work, but that didn't work either. Do you think it will work if somehow I uninstall IMovie and all things connected to it and reinstalled from the install dvd that came with the computer?
Thanks for your help.

IMovie won't import MPEG movies from Sony Handycam

My Sony Handycam DCR-SR45 is connected to my Macbook pro via USB. After clicking iMovie's File Import, I can see the "No Name" device as well as the various mpg files that I want to import. The mpg files correctly show the date created, file size, etc. However, the mpg files are grayed-out and I cannot select them to import. Does anyone have a suggestion?

I have exactly the same issue. I think that iMovie must have a limitation on the length of the clip you can import. My 45 minute clip will play with VLC, but won't import inot imovie.

IMovie Won't Import Any Files

I've previously imported all of my GoPro videos into iMovie for editing without any issues. Suddenly, when I try and import my most recent GoPro videos, it acts like it is going to import and displays the "Processing Event" box. Then nothing happens. I thought that was strange so I tried to import videos shot on my iPhone as well. They also did not work. I've now gone through and tried to import several different video formats and I always get the same response. It acts like it is working, then nothing shows up.
At the bottom of iMovie, I have the "Show All Clips" selected, so any available clips should appear in the event. None of the files I'm trying to import are grayed out or anything, and I've never had issues in the past. Not sure what has suddenly changed. Please help.

Here's some additional information that is more frustrating. I opened iMovie on my Mac Book Pro and did the same import on the same GoPro files and it worked fine. No issues. I can't figure out why it won't import on my iMac. I also just updated my iMovie software to the latest version, and still no luck.

IMovie 9.0.4 won't import Sharp miniDV

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