Imovie and mini DVD camcorder

My students made a movie on a DV camcorder when the camera quit working. I was able to import the partial video into Imovie, but we finished the movie on my Canon mini DVD camcorder. Is there any way to somehow get the second half of the movie (on two mini dvds) into Imovie so I can edit it all together? At this point, I burned the portion in Imovie and am trying to figure out how to combine them all on my pc. However, I really love Imovie and would like to use it. Any suggestions would be great.
Thanks

I have an external hard drive. So, I guess I could just save my imovie files in the portable hard drive and then move them to my pc or vice versa? However, aren't the formats different? When I tried to use Quick Time Pro, it didn't recognize the formats (Video_TS.BUP and Video_TS.VOB)
Could I move those files into my mac using my external hard drive and then import into imovie? I should say I'm a very new Mac user, and not very experienced with editing - have only begun.
Thanks for all your help

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Firewire and mini-dvd camcorder

If I purchase a mini-dvd camcorder that does have firewire, can I play [and capture] the movie from the camcorder into quicktime pro?

No.
Your file is MPEG-2 and QuickTime Pro can't extract audio (during any conversion) from muxed formats.
QuickTime Pro (Mac only version) can record from many cameras and can convert to MPEG-4 (good), H.264 (better) and device native (best).
Firewire is required to move the data from the camera to the machine.
You could import and convert using a DV tape camera with Firewire using QuickTime Pro but I don't think a DVD camcorder has any "pass through" features. If it does then the source may be able to be captured (bypassing recording to MPEG-2).

Can't import video from canon mini dvd camcorder to imovie

I'm having problems importing my videos into imovie. i have a canon mini dvd camcorder. The camera only has a usb cord to move the videos. When i connect camcorder to computer idvd opens up and i can watch videos, but i can't import to imovie. This has been very frustrating. Can anyone help me with this problem. Hopefully i won't have to buy a new camcorder.

Hi f
Very good advices from Sue ! (Hi Sue !)
Karsten has collected it like this:
Hi
A. don't put a mini DVD into Your iMac. You need a trayloaded DVD to do this.
B. Read what Karsten collected:
DVD back to iMovie:
.. and here the complete 'full 9 yards' ... :
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3822853&#3822853
DVDs are in a socalled delivery format (mpeg2), which isn't meant and
made for any processing as editing... or, as honorable forum member
QuicktimeKirk stated: I use the analogy of the old Polaroid
"instant" cameras. Push the button, wait for the print to develop and
show it off. ..
for using the iLife apps, you have to convert'em first, in
recommended order, choose one of the following tools/workarounds:
• DVDxDV (free trial, 25$, Pro: 90$)
• Apple mpeg2 plugin (19$) + Streamclip (free)
• VisualHub (23.32$)
• Cinematize >60$
• Mpeg2Works >25$ + Apple plug-in
• Toast 6/7/8 allows converting to dv/insert dvd, hit apple-k
• connect a miniDV Camcorder with analogue input to a DVD-player and transfer disk to tape/use as converter
• Drop2DV (free) a free tool claiming to convert DVDs into dv-stream...
• Use iSquint for your conversions : www.iSquint.org
from: Bobby Keene
none of these apps override copyprotection mechanisms as on commercial dvds...
http://danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/tips_tricks/6010.shtml
http://danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/tips_tricks/6018.shtml
be nice to copy rights ^-^
... and, next time, try the forum's search-feature...
from Beverly M.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42724
Yours Bengt W

Looking for a GREAT mini DVD Camcorder that is compatible with my MAC! :-)

Ok. Here it is: I have a Sony DCR-TRV350 Camcorder, which I LOVE. However, the DVI port on the camera is screwed up. I bought a new DVI firewire, alas, to no avail. I cannot get the information from the camera to my Mac. So, making my fun, goofy movies is being inhibited by a fix, that will cost nearly as much as a new camera. I am looking for a new camera, that takes advantage of the firewire port on the Mac. Any suggestions? I would prefer a Sony. I am looking for advice from someone who knows, better then I, (that should be easy) of a good camcorder (miniDVD?) that works well with a Mac. I just want to have fun, bringing in footage to iMovie HD, editing, and posting them to Metacafe. Any and all input is, of course greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!!
~ George

"..I wish Apple would tell me "why" a standard MiniDVD camcorder would not be compatible with I-Movie, because I can not think of a single logical reason.."
iMovie was designed to work with "DV" digital camcorders. These were, and are, camcorders which record video in a particular method onto DV, or miniDV, tape. iMovie wasn't designed to import or edit analogue 8mm or Hi-8 recordings, so it won't. iMovie can't handle an incoming analogue (non-digital) signal. (..But if you put one of those 8mm or Hi-8 analogue tapes in a Digital-8 camcorder such as the Sony DCR-TRV350, mentioned in the very first post, above, you can then import it as a digital signal through the camcorder's FireWire connection..)
Various other digital recording methods came and went, and Apple have supported some, but not others: there was the short-lived Sony "microMV" tape format which Apple didn't support, although you can handle that with MPEG Streamclip. Then there was HDV, which Apple does support ..but they did that by creating an Apple Intermediate Codec, into which the MPEG-2 video format of HDV tape gets converted during import.
Then there were various MPEG-2 DVD video formats, and the various movie formats used by solid-state memory-chip camcorders. Now there's AVCHD format, for memory chips, hard drives and DVDs.
These methods of recording video just keep multiplying - because the camcorder manufacturers want to offer "Look! Ours-does-it-better!" claims. But just because they produce a camcorder which records video, that doesn't mean that Apple (which doesn't make camcorders) has to provide a means to edit all these weird formats which keep springing up. Surely, the camcorder manufacturers should be providing Mac-compatible, or iMovie-compatible, editing methods for their devices, shouldn't they?
As Thomas mentions, there's a list of some compatible camcorders (see above) ..but that's a list of camcorders which are compatible with the latest iMovie '08 (..which can deal with some DVD camcorders, but not those which record DVDs in AVCHD format..) and AVCHD format can be handled only by Intel-based Macs, anyway.
So for an MPEG-2-based mini-DVD camcorder and iMovie HD 6, copy the files into your Mac, and then use MPEG Streamclip to convert them to iMovie HD 6 compatibility.
For iMovie '08, some miniDVD camcorders are compatible (those using MPEG-2 recording). For DVD camcorders using AVCHD recording, you may have to copy the recordings onto your Mac, and then download and use "Voltaic" to convert the recordings into iMovie-editable format.
"..I can not think of a single logical reason.." ..the reason is that manufacturers just want you to buy these cameras. But they don't give a hoot that you can't edit the material they record, and so it's left to Apple, and other software developers, to try to devise some way to "unravel" the compressed recordings for you, and make them editable.

Sony Mini-DVD Camcorder

I recently bought a mac book pro and I have final cut express. I am trying to hook up my sony mini dvd camcorder to my computer so that I can capture my footage off of my camcorder to make movies. Any suggestion would be helpful. Thanks

"No matter how competent FC / FCE is, it is still a very small minority with respect to the numer of professionals actually using it. Adobe might be counting on gaining market share by being able to announce AVCHD support before Apple, and given that the majority of users out there do not use FC/FCE and that more an more Mac users are new users / switchers, it might not be such a bad plan if Apple is typical Apple and slow to adopt new technology (but getting it mostly right when they finally do move)."
I'm not quite sure what some of this means, and I think much of it is quite wrong. If, by the first sentence, you mean that only a small minority of professionals use Final Cut. This is quite inaccurate. It is by far the most widely used video editing software on the planet. Far exceeding Avid, Media 100, Premiere or any other available software. Avid is strongly entrenched in film production and primetime television, but that accounts for a minute proportion of all video production worldwide. I would also disagree that Apple is slow to support new technology. Apple was the first software with professional DV editing, native HDV editing, DVCPRO 50 and DVCPRO HD via FireWire, the first to support DVX 24p and 24pa, and while it might have have been the first to support IMX and XDCAM, it wasn't far behind. It was slow to support native JVC HDV 720p editing, but that's about the only area in which it was not a leader, and it only happened because Apple wanted to edit the material natively as it did Sony 1080i, coupled with the Intel issue. AVCHD is very new technology, and its use of delivery format, 15 frame GOP-based compression for acquisition presents huge issues for any editing applications. Not something that can be turned around in a couple of weeks or even months. One thing that has greatly slowed down the development of video editing application interface functionality over the last few years has been the constant stream of ever-changing formats introduced by camera manufacturers. This has meant that less and less time has been available to actually work on the software. In Apple's case this has been further complicated by the move to Intel-based hardware, and the necessity to port all its software to a new architecture. This has not slowed Apple's development and support for new formats, but it has greatly delayed feature enhancements, in my view. Personally I feel, at this stage, it would be better for the pro apps to work on core issues and enhancements rather than continue development for yet another format, particularly a problematic consumer format. Panasonic is developing a professional format AVCHD Intra that might be supported on the pro apps before the consumer version.

How do I get video to IMovie from my dvd camcorder?

How do I get video from my Canon DVD camcorder to Imovie?

The second half of this file discusses moving files from an iPod to a computer:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300173
Videos are presumably in the "Video" rather than "iTunes" directory; you should be able to just navigate around in that directory for the file you want rather than replacing the entire directory as that article suggests (in which case you'd want to omit the "moving the directory to the desktop" steps, and so forth).
Patrick Alexander

Can I use downloaded songs from iTunes into iMovie and burn DVDs?

If I use downloaded songs from iTunes in iMovie, will I be able to make DVDs of my movie without losing music files?

Hi A
Probably but iMovie and I guess iDVD is fussy about in what format the audio
is in. It should be 48k/.aiff
If You in iTunes make an audio CD with the material You need in Your movie
and then Use this CD in iMovie it will work.
Yours Bengt W

IMovie and Fujifilm DVD-R's

I am having a problem burning an iMovie to FujiFilm DVD-r's. Does anyone have any ideas. This same movie burns fine on an Imation DVD-R. Can someone explain this to me. I just bought 100 of these and I find it hard to believe that I have to use these as coasters for my next party. HELP!!!!!!!

The plot thickens.
I work on two machines: a monster Dual Processor G5 and a G4 PowerBook. I was trying to burn on the DP G5 and it would not burn on those Fuji DVD-R's. I tried it on my G4 Laptop and they burn fine. Go figure the machine designed to handle all that digital video has to offer will not burn those disks. At least I don't have to resort to the coaster idea!!!!!
Thanks, for the help!
Bernie

IMovie and Canon FS100 Camcorder - will they work together?

Hi! A MacUser since 1989, and using a digital camera for stills and videos since 2004 - +but really have done next to nothing with a true "camcorder".+
I'm considering a Canon FS100 camcorder which records onto SD and SDHC cards (but has no internal memory / storage).
*But my concerns are this:*
1. How to transfer from the SD cards to my Mac? (currently 10.4.11 but likely 10.5 in a month or so)
2. If I purchase the camcorder in the USA it is apparently set for NTSC - i.e. I can only play back from the camera to an NTSC television - but I travel in the US, live in Europe (PAL) -- is there no "switch" to choose either the recording or the playback mode (like there is with my iPod Touch- for playback that is).
3. What about "still photos" that I take with the FS100? Are they .jpg files? Can iPhoto handle them?
4. Indeed what about iPhoto: Can it import all the videos and photos from an FS100??
Again, this is all real "new new" to me; and I don't want to buy/carry 2 camcorders (an NTSC and a PAL!!!) --
Any help or reference guides etc really appreciated. The big trip is not tomorrow, so I've got some time here.
Thanks! Steve Schulte
Saturday 2 August 2008 at 17:37

Hi there Stephen,
I feel so lucky that I stumbled into a great file management scheme with my Canon HF100 and I can also report that before that I tried an FS100 and the same procedure for a week before I got this camera. I picked up this method on a thread on MacRumours, I believe.
Without the inconvenience of needing the AC power adapter plugged in to download files direct from the camera, simply use a USB card reader to read directly from the card. The card will mount as a device labeled "Canon" and inside that is a single directory labeled "Private". Inside that is the one you want, labeled "AVCHD". Create a disc image just a little larger than this file and drag the "AVCHD" file over to the disk image. Name the disk image to suit, such as place/date. Both iMovie 08 and FCE recognize the mounted image as a camera and import the footage just fine. Not quite PNP, but this procedure is so smooth that I'm almost surprised that this video n00b could get it going so well If you are in a hurry you can just drag the file to a folder named similar to what you will name the disk image to keep them sorted and do the disk images later on.
I use 8 gig SDHC cards so that I can archive each full card's AVCHD file's disk image on a dual layer DVD. I leave the images on a hard drive as well, but won't be shy about deleting less precious ones and using the DVD's only for storage. The images will mount directly from the DVD and import easily too.
This weekend I upgraded from 10.4.10 to 10.5.4, installed FCE, and was able to mount a disc image and import the files as easily as before.
But of course, you need an Intel Mac do work with the AVCHD files....
Hope this helps!
Cheers!
Glen

I downloaded the newest version of iMovies, and now my camcorder won't import video. What can I do to correct this? Is there any way to go back to an older version of iMovies?

My camcorder is incompatible with the newest version of iMovies. What can I do to make it compatible again?

You should still have the old version in your App Folder.
I have iMovie HD 6, iMovie 9, plus iMovie 10 and all run just fine in Mavericks.

I am attempting to convert 8mm video cassettes to dvd using a video cassette player, elgato video capture with rca/usb connections to the mac, editing in imovie and burning on idvd. The picture quality is awful. What can I do?????

I am attempting to convert 8mm video cassettes to dvd using a video cassette player, elgato video capture with rca/usb connections to the mac then editing in imovie and burning dvd-r using idvd. The picture quality is awful. What can I do??????

At what point is the video quality bad? Is it bad on capture? I would recommend using an s-video 1394 firewire converter instead. They capture the video at a higher bit rate. If you have a lot of 8mm tapes to capture, invest in a stand alone DVD recorder. They capture and compress in one shot. If you need to rip it back from the DVD into iMovie again, I would recommend using DVDxDV.

Mini DVD files

I was recently contacted about getting the footage from a mini DVD camcorder into iMovie. I know these cameras aren't mac compatible and I told the guy that but, does anyone know what kind of files are made when it's put onto a PC? I thought there might be a pain in the *** workflow to get the files in a proper iMovie format. I've already suggested if he needs to film footage often that he may want to look into a different camera.

Can somebody please walk me through this step by step please?
1) Open MPEG Streamclip.
2) Drop a VTS_01.VOB file on the MPEG Streamclip work/display area. (Note: Not familiar with Sony Mini naming here. Regular DVDs contain file series like VTS020.VOB, VTS021.VOB, VTS022.VOB, VTS023.VOB, etc.) The first two numbers refers to the "title" and the third (if present), refers to individual "segments" constituting parts of the entire title. In any case, if no third number is present, drop the VTS_##.VOB file on the work area. If a third number is present, drop any non-zero VTS_##.#.VOB file on the work area and select all when the application asks if it should load "1 file" or "all files.")
3) Slide the display slider to a point where your movie is clearly displayed.
4) Open the File "Show Stream Info" option window and note the audio sampling rate.
5) Open the file menu and select "Export to DV" option.
6) Select a compression format. (I usually use DVCPRO25.)
7) Change Aspect ratio if necessary.
8) If current audio sampling rate is other than 48.0 kHz, set the "Resample Audio to 48 KHZ" option.
9) Set "Split DV Stream in Segments" if using older version of iMovie.
10) If display of your movie has black bars (overscan), set the "Cropping" option and enter crop "guesstimations."
11) Set adjustment options ( brightness, contrast, saturation, volume) as needed.
12) Press the preview button and check "crop" setting if needed.
13) Press the "Make DV" button and enter required information.
That's all there is to it. File(s) should work directly in iMovie. Movies imported to FCE/FCP will require rendering but are otherwise good to go.

Issue with importing & editing mini DVDs

We used a Sony mini DVD camcorder 2000-2005. I have about 25 discs that I converted into AVI format which obviously iMovie does not support. I have used Toast Titanium as well as several other programs to convert files to m4v, mp4, mov, dv. Some don't show up in iMovie which I assume means they aren't supported. Other however will import into iMovie events but the video is all 1 clip and the option to split them is not available. Does anyone have suggestions on what format to convert AVI to so that I split the events in iMovie and then make projects out of each of them?
jason

I would suggest using a free app called MPEG Streamclip, from Squared 5.
With MPEG Streamclip, you can drag your long clip in. Then you can move the play head to where you want your shorter clip to start, and press I - for In Point. Then move the playhead to where you want your shorter clip to end and press O - for Out Point. Then FILE/EXPORT USING QUICKTIME and choose Apple Intermediate Codec for highest quality, or choose h.264 for smallest file. Give it a name, and then repeat until you have made all the short clips you need from the long clip. You can then import these into an iMovie Event using FILE/IMPORT MOVIE.

Can I use mini dvd's in my new imac?

Have several movies made with sony mini dvd camcorder, can I put the mini-dvd in the dvd slot of my imac, or will it get stuck? Thanks,
Dan

I was thinking about this and one way to avoid this problem completely is to invest in an external Pioneer Burner housed in an ext. FW enclosure.
Essentially one needs to make certain the drive has the capacity to play such a disk prior to its insertion into the machine.
Click here
I realize it's much harder to do this visual exam on a laptop or a slot loading S-Drive as opposed to a slide out tray as shown above.

Using Mini Dvds With iMac?

Hi, I have a dell (pos) right now and I'm getting a iMac today, but i was wondering if the iMac supports the mini dvds that you use in the digital recorder cameras?

You will need an external tray-fed DVD drive for that.
That said, given the choice, you don't want to use a mini-DVD camcorder anyway. They are designed for immediate playback in a set-top DVD player, not for editing or manipulation. The MPEG-2 compression that the video undergoes substantially degrades the quality of the video, and because it stores the video in GOPs, you can't do frame-accurate editing of the video.
You want something that shoots DV (often cheaper than the DVD models), or AVCHD (mostly found on flash and hard-disk HD models). Mind you, AVCHD editing can be slow -- it's highly compressed.

Imovie and mini DVD camcorder

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