Imovie 9.09 unable to generate thumbnails on my iMac running 10.6.8

I'm trying to digitise camcorder footage currently saved on vhs tape.  Although I'm now using a 27"iMac running Yosemite, I don't have the usb lead with the std usb connector on the computer end to connect the digitiser to it, so I'm using my old iMac running 10.6.8 and iMovie 9 as I have the correct lead for that iMac.
I did a test one minute file transfer and this digitised, opening it in iMovie 10, ok so I saved it onto a USB stick and transferred it to the 27" iMac though without any content displayed in the clip. Even so, it plays ok so I'd be content if the remaining tapes got digitised with this problem.  But.....
When I tried to import 2 hours as one file the conversion appeared to be going ok until I stopped it.  I then got a message saying that it was generating thumbnails and would take a minute.  this changed to 2, then 9, then 2 hours, then 4 hours.  After it had been running for  12 hours with no change in the 4 hours estimated for generating the thumbnails i did a force quite, then tried to get back into iMovie.
When it opened, it went straight into generating thumbnails, estimating the time needed as 9 minutes.  It's now been stuck on "less than a minute" for about 30 mins so I'm about to do another force quit.
All suggestions welcomed, ideally to generate thumbails in the shortest time possible - though I'd be content just to get the file transferred with no thumbnails.
Advice please.

Save the photos to the camera roll on the iPad, then connect it to your computer with a USB cable. You can import the photos using iPhoto if you have it or image capture if you don't.

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