Imovie won't accept my camera's movie files

I have a JVC Everio Hard drive video camera and when I go to import movies into imovie it lets me view the video files on the camera's hard drive, but they are faded and it won't let me select them. I don't know if its not a supported file type or what the problem is. Is there a setting or some kind of program I need to convert the file type or hopw can I get the files into imovie.

These threads may be of interest.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2054993
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1984293&#1984293
Matt

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Macbook won't identify cannon camera for movie upload

I am trying to upload new movie files into iMovie from a Canon HD camera and imovie will not identify the camera. The window for importing will not open. It did the first half of the import,crashed, and now will not even show the source video to import. It has had similar crashes but always comes back after restart. Does anyone have a remedy for this problem?

Download it from here:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23247/apple-digital-camera-raw-compatibility

IMovie won't read all my Canon HF100 files.

I have a Canon HF100 camcorder. I record in FXP or 1080 HD video mode, 60 frames. My PC reads and imports the video just fine.
I have a brand new Macbook Pro 15" intel cpu machine with iMovie 09. When I use one of the memory cards to import video it works fine. When I use the other memory card to import video it doesn't even see the camera. It will import pics from it into iPhoto and mounts the camera so you can see the files but iMovie won't even recognize it.
The cards are both formatted fat 32, all video on both is recorded in the same format, both cards had pictures on them as well as the video. I have tried everything I can to get iMovie to read the files, everything suggested on the forums and researched the heck out of this. It won't recognize one of my cards, even though everything else on the mac will. I have 14 gig of HD video to import and am running out of options. I don't have the money to buy another program just to get THIS program to read the files. iMovie 09 was supposed to be HD compatible....why doesn't it have native .mts file support? these cameras have been out for over a year or two and are some of the more popular ones around now. Please help if you can!!!!

D. Thomas Lamourine wrote:
well, it seems that the card is bad from what you say. Are you plugging the camera directly to the mac? or using a card reader? what type of card? (guessing MMC/SD card?) how big is the card? if you can get it to show on the desktop then make a folder and manually drag the files off the card and into the folder a few at a time. You will probably find one or 2 corrupt and wont move over so don't try and do them all at once because it'll just bog down. do the smaller ones first!!
you may also find that very large files SEEM to be not seen but it's just the USB/Firewire/system need a LOT of time to transport and convert the file into mac.. (not really what it's doing but give you and idea)
As was stated you may need to reformat the card because its got bad data areas/blocks. From what you are stating it's more than likely the card, not the computer/software.
I have had issues with a friends camera importing to Imovie. My camera and his both record in AVI format but mine I can import directly where his I have to run it through Quicktime Pro and convert to MOV files.. why? no clue but it works.
I would love it if it was just a bad card but check this out. The files are all perfectly fine. They can be copied to my mac no problem. I imported them all to my Windows PC and they play / edit just fine. I'm working with a free file converter to change them into what, mpeg4? I really really don't want to buy VoltaicHD just for a memory card worth (albeit 16 gig of video) of video. I DID find this on Canon's website....
+Issue: What is the Mac compatibility of my camcorder?+
+Solution: The digital video solutions disk is compatible with Mac OS 10.2 up to 10.4 for stills only. No video related software is provided.+
+The video connectivity of the Canon DVD and Hard Disc Drive camcorders provided by the software bundled with them is designed for use with Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Microsoft Windows Vista only. The Sonic Roxio My DVD software included with some models is only compatible with the Windows XP SP2 operating system when combined with a computer supporting the USB 2.0 specification.+
+Macintosh OS10.4.3 and up users may be able to view the contents of a finalized disk or files recorded onto the hard drive (for hard disc drive models) on the computer when it is connected to a USB port on the computer. With a finalized disk loaded into the camcorder the camera should show up on the desktop as a mounted drive and files may be copied (dragged) from the disk using normal procedures. Any desired editing, playback or other features may require additional third party software.+
+Note: Proper operation is not guaranteed.+
Now I already have reformatted the card and put the files back on it, still no dice. I've tried everything I can think of, I have no other codecs on my machine but QT native codecs. From what Ive read on the forums and such it seems that iMovie and the lack of support by Apple for .mts and .m2ts file formats in general is the main problem. It seems people have random problems with HD camcorders. Some people it works fine for and some it doesn't..I am one of the unlucky ones with intermittent compatibility. Fun. I have spent SO much time on this problem I almost took my mac back. This is my first Mac and while I love it to death, I am getting real tired of the unsupported crap and having to download other programs to get it to work right when it was supposed to do so in the beginning. I'm not trying to rant, just really frustrated at all the extra expense after having paid 2400$ for what was supposed to do it by itself. From what Canon said on their website, apparently there ARE issues with mac compatibility and it may or may not work. yay. Oh well, I guess I'm stuck paying for more 3rd party software.
Also, yea, I cannot import AVI files into iMovie even after I installed divx...good stuff.
Message was edited by: Stormborn

Why won't Front Row recognize DV movie files??

Hi,
I've placed several DV movie files in my 'Movies' folder and Front Row doesn't seem to find them. If I save the files as an MOV file, front row sees them instantly, but a) it doubles the file size and b) I shouldn't have to do that.
The first Intel iMac I had (which was returned for other reasons) saw and played the same files immediately after they were dropped in the folder.
Does anyone know why this might be happening??Does the recent Front Row software update have something to do with it??
As always, any help is greatly appreciated!
-SS

Hey Rachel,
I use QuickTime Pro to save them as MOV files. If you want a free solution, I'm pretty sure you'd be able to do it using iMovie. Import the DV file and then export it as an MOV file. There's probably another free program out there that will do it more simply, but I haven't looked into that.
I think this degrades the quality a little bit though, and we shouldn't have to go to this trouble. The DV files (and any other Quicktime-playable format) should show up in Front Row if placed into your "Movies" folder. At least that's my understanding...
-SS

Imovie 09 fails to import h.264 .mov file 1280x528

Hi,
When I import a .mov file it seems to process but doesn't actually bring the video into imovie.
Here's the file specs:
.mov
h.264, 1280x528 millions
AAC, 2 channels 44100 Hz
I've also tried with an mp4 (mpeg4 codec) and am mp4 (h.264 codec) of the same clip and none of them import successfully.
They were all converted from a .mkv file using iFunia MKV converter.
Thanks,

Can You get one movie file onto DeskTop
• select it - and press cmd+I [apple-key and I-key]
or - better
• open it with QuickTime-player
(YES it can open many many more Video-Codecs than iMovie can use)
- open Inspector - o press cmd+I [apple-key and I-key]
Now read
• Formatted as (Video-Codec) :
• No. of Frames per second :
could look like this (or about) :
and my QuickTime-player (pro) can convert this to AIC if needed - or at least as StreamingDV as this is the best choice for me and my projects.
Yours Bengt W

IMovie won't export a 3 picture movie (no video)

Having problems with my mac recently (actually my wife's mac). For years she has been doing movies with iMovie and iDVD and loves it overall. However, on her recently new (month old), she has a Macbook Pro, 16 gig ram, 2 gig video ram 750gig flash SSD drive storage, OS X Mavericks 10.9.4 latest patches, etc. She for some reason can NOT do an export of a movie. It is complaining about not enough memory.
So, from other posts, I did the sodu purge as admin user and cleared the memory file cache that was 6 gig... brought it back down to about 500k -- more reasonable. I then started iMovie to publish and it still failed. As soon as iMovie started, the file cache kicked back up to 3 gig which does not make sense. So I exited iMovie, re-purged and restarted iMovie.
I then created a new project. Put 3 single pictures in it -- no video at all. Then did publish and it nagged again about not enough memory. I even had the export down to mobile device output for smallest possible (vs HD1080 format).
It is like it has something permanently stuck in its craw and won't let go.
Now, another few things... I have done a full logout AND full shutdown SEVERAL TIMES and it still won't allow a published export.
Please help !!

iMovie is part of iLife. It should be on the #2 gray instalation disk that came with your MacBook
While we all have MacBooks in this forum not all of us use iMovie. There's an iMovie Support Community where everybody uses iMovie. You should also post this question there to increase your chances of getting an answer. https://discussions.apple.com/community/ilife/imovie

Imovie won't let me save my movie as a file, and it says ''startup disk'' is full!

I made a movie on Imovie and it won't let me download or convert, I don't know what else I can do, and also it says my disk is full, and my macbook is 64 and its impossible, i dont have that much. please help me. I want to save my movie and fix disk because is making my computer slower and doesn't let me save anything because is ''full''. I need to find a way to save the movie complete and as a file and make my computer faster and with it's original memory.
HELP!.

I have the same problem and then some. I movie won't share this particular project, but it also won't save any changes made to it or any other project. At least that's what it started doing, now when I go to even try to make any changes it wigs out and things get scrambled in the Project window and it plays video from another project.
When I create a new project, the Share menu is available, but it won't save changes to that project either. And by that I mean I can put stuff in the project and do whatever, but as soon as I quit and relaunch the application, the project is empty. I did figure out that if I make changes in a new project and immediately share it to the media browser that it will save the changes, but then it messes up my other project even more somehow!
Tried archive and install, deleting plists, reinstalling iMovie and iLife support stuff (twice), repairing permissions, and changing permissions in the project package. Any other ideas?

IMovie won't quit referencing camera after import.

After I import video from my camera and then disconnect the camera, IMovie clips won't finalize. It appears that the video has been imported into the library, and I can use the clips to create a video. However, when I disconnec the video camera, video clips that I had used from the camera are now not visible and the window displays "missing camera" with no video. At one point I was able to share the video to file and it created the video in Theater, but then when I tried to share to YouTube I get a message that it won't share due to the video still trying to reference the camera. How do I fix this?

Several people have reported this problem. It seems that occasionally iMovie decides to reference clips on the camera rather than copying them to the imovie library. I don't know why this is happening but as a workaround you could try first copying your clips and photos from the camera to your hard drive, disconnecting the camera, then importing them into iMovie from the hard drive.
Geoff.

IMovie Won't Export to Camera or Upload to YouTube iPad Mini

My videos only 6 minutes. My Privacy>Photos is on and I am logged into my Youtube. I have no idea why it won't work. I'm not uninstalling it because it took me an entire day to make to video and it will be really hard to recreate it.

Will someone please help I really need to get this video out.

With iMovie 10 how do I change the movie file size and type.

I have recently upgraded to iMovie 10. It takes some getting used to but I think I will like the new product. After creating my first few movies and trying to upload them to dropbox, it is taking a long time. Comparing the files to ones created in the previous version they are larger, and I need to know how we adjust the file size to the device the movies will be used for. I don't need high resolution files. It looks like you can change the size in file for share but still a large file and only compatible with Mac and PC others are greyed out. Files are much larger than the files generated in the old version.
Thanks any help will be appreciated.

This is one of the areas where the options have been reduced compared to iMovie 9. If you share to File, you should have Large (540p) and SD (480p) options in addition to the HD ones.
I'm not sure exactly which menu it is where you are finding greyed-out options.
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If you can't share directly into the format you want you should be able to post-process the shared file with a third-party app.
Geoff.

IMOVIE 6 won't recognize DV camera while IDVD is encoding or burning

I am in the process of encoding and burning a dvd in idvd 6. Given the length of this process, I want to also import some video into an imovie 6 project. However, while idvd is encoding, imovie won't recognize my camera.
I understand I can stop idvd, but then will I lose the encoding that has already occurred?
Will imove recognize the camera if I launch idvd after beginning the import into imovie?
Is there a software fix that will prevent idvd from monopolizing the firewire port when it is just encoding video from an imovie project?
This is a very irritating conflict given the time encoding takes in idvd.
Thanks,
Knapper
Dual 1 GHz PowerPC G4 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

As Sue suggests, it's not surprising that iDVD doesn't want you to access the camera with iMovie. It's not unusual for applications that perform FireWire-intensive functions—as both iDVD and iMovie do—to want to control the device. If iDVD can't control the camera, it may not be able to perform a task you want it to do. (Remember, iDVD offers several camcorder-dependent functions, including OneStep DVDs.)
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The iMovie video looked fine here, but your mileage may vary.
Karl

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Hello,
My Powerbook (bought in 2004) is senile and having various problems (see below for more details), so perhaps this issue can't be fixed without fixing the other stuff (or getting a new computer)... but just curious.
I'm helping a friend with a video project, and he brought over his small Lacie external HD with his footage on it-- recorded with an HD video camera, then imported into iMovie HD, now simply a bunch of .mov files in a folder.
When I try to open of the files with Quicktime Pro, it gives me a white screen and plays the sound, and tells me the "component is missing", and that i can try to find it on the Qcktime site, but I couldn't figure out which Codec to try (and you have to pay for them all?). I also tried updating my Quicktime to 7.4, and the exact same thing happens.
When I try to open them with iMovie 4.0.1, it says "Can't open [this file]; skipping and continuing".
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Samantha
PS- Background on my computer troubles of late-- in December I was having some problems with various things, which led me to try and repair the hard-disk, which didn't work. Some of my questions/conversation are on this thread.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1256737&tstart=0
Then for Christmas I bought DiskWarrior, ran it, but it couldn't repair the disk/replace the system because of some "error". Which makes me think I have some serious Hard-disk problem-- although the hardware seems fine according to SMART. So right now i'm just trying to get through a few of these big projects before trying erase-and-install with my whole system, and if that doesn't work, then probably investing in a new computer. Time to upgrade perhaps.
Was having some weird problems before, so ended up getting DiskWarrior,

Hi-
Referring to this post:
"The AIC codec is installed by iMovie HD and is just what its name implies. Intermediate (temporary conversion from one file format to another).
Your G4 will not be able to play the file past a few frames per second because of the large dimensions and high data rate even if you did find the codec. You'll find editing it using QuickTime or iMovie a frustrating experience because of those facts."
I'm a little confused-- do you mean that the G4 computer is just not strong enough to edit HD files "even if I did find the codec"? I was planning to edit it with Final Cut Pro (have never edited a HD project before), but is my computer not adequate? Let me know if there is any way for me to tackle an HD project with my current laptop-- otherwise I guess I really need to look into a new one.
-shc

IMovie won't contect to my camcorder

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How can I convert a .dv file into a .mov file?
When I export an iMovie project in "full" quality, it creates a .dv file (I don't even know what that is, really). I've found that websites (like facebook, for example) won't accept it, and that .mov is more common and acceptable. But I don't see a "full quality" .mov option in iMovie.
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Imovie won't accept my camera's movie files

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