Imovie crashes/won't import

Question

I had a problem importing video from my sony TRV-250 into imovie 5 back when I first got my iMac. I called APPLE, reset PRAM and thought the issue was fixed because I was able to import. Hadn't tried again until now, and suddenly I find I'm in the same boat. It shows that the camera is connected but won't import, and crashes when I try to control the camera from the iMovie controls. I reset PRAM and that didn't work as it did the last time. I unplugged everything from the firewire ports(camera and ext. hard drive), restarted the computer and tried the bottom port with the top empty and it suddenly DID import, but stopped after 12 seconds and then wouldn't recognize my camera at all. It didn't even show that a device was connected in system profiler. I started over, resetting PRAM and restarting the computer with empty ports, and now it's importing. But it will only work from the top port, not the bottom. Does this make any sense at all? Why do I have to reset PRAM every-time I want to import video from my camera? If anyone has a similar issue or can shed some light on this I would really appreciate it.
iMac G5 20 rev. B   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

Answer 1

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
2005-08-04 13:19:00 -0400: Installed "DVD Player" (4.6)
2005-08-04 13:19:24 -0400: Installed "QuickTime" (7.0.1)
2005-08-04 13:19:27 -0400: Installed "Apple Intermediate Codec" (1.0.1)
2005-08-04 13:19:36 -0400: Installed "Keynote Update" (2.0.2)
2005-08-04 13:19:59 -0400: Installed "Mac OS X Update Combined" (10.4.2)
2005-08-04 13:20:12 -0400: Installed "iTunes" (4.9)
2005-08-04 13:20:49 -0400: Installed "iPhoto Update" (5.0.4)
2005-08-04 13:20:56 -0400: Installed "iMovie HD Update" (5.0.2)
2005-08-04 13:21:48 -0400: Installed "iPod Updater 2005-06-26" ( )
2005-08-18 08:15:04 -0400: Installed "Final Cut Express" (2.0.3)
2005-08-18 08:15:12 -0400: Installed "GarageBand Update" (2.0.2)
2005-08-18 08:15:17 -0400: Installed "iSync Update" (2.1)
2005-08-18 08:15:19 -0400: Installed "DVD Playback Update" (4.6.1)
2005-08-18 08:15:49 -0400: Installed "Security Update 2005-007" (1.1)
2005-09-02 18:23:11 -0400: Installed "Pages Update" (1.0.2)
2005-09-02 18:23:34 -0400: Installed "Safari Update" (2.0.1)
2005-10-14 17:04:33 -0400: Installed "Security Update 2005-008" (1.0)
2005-10-14 17:04:40 -0400: Installed "Java 1.3.1 and 1.4.2 Release 2" (2.0)
2005-10-14 17:05:24 -0400: Installed "iTunes" (6.0)
2005-10-14 17:06:16 -0400: Installed "QuickTime" (7.0.3)
2006-01-13 16:38:09 -0500: Installed "iTunes Phone Driver" (1.0)
2006-01-13 16:38:14 -0500: Installed "J2SE 5.0 Release 3" (3.0)
2006-01-13 16:38:34 -0500: Installed "QuickTime" (7.0.4)
2006-01-13 16:38:51 -0500: Installed "iTunes" (6.0.2)
2006-01-13 16:38:58 -0500: Installed "iPod Updater 2006-01-10" ( )
2006-01-13 16:40:47 -0500: Installed "Mac OS X Update Combined" (10.4.4)
2006-02-15 16:40:43 -0500: Installed "Mac OS X Update (PowerPC)" (10.4.5)
2006-02-22 15:41:44 -0500: Installed "iTunes" (6.0.3)