Import from digital video converter

I am new to Mac and very new to iMovie.
I have a mac Mini with OSX 10.4.11 and am using a DAC 200 Digital video converter to import video from a VCR (converting old tapes of the family) via Firewire.
I turned on the Video converter and the camera import window opened automatically. I recorded the tape (about 2 hours) and clicked DONE at the end of the tape. iMovie then automatically generated thumbnails. This took about 45 minutes. When done, the imported video was only 42 seconds long. I repeated the process and the resulting video was only 1.9 seconds.
What did I do wrong? I looked at all the settings and nowhere did i find something which seemed to be responsible for limiting the video length. How do I get the full video?
and how do I prevent the automatic thumbnail generation?
Many thanks
Mark

Welcome to the  Discussion Forums.
Firstly I don't know anything about your converter, but wonder if it comes with any software or gives any indications of what format it converts the analogue to. It seems rather strange that it would take 45 minutes to create thumbnails for 42 seconds of video, take a look at your events folder (by default its in home/movies) and look for the actual imported files, check to see if they are really only 42 seconds long.
imovie 08 is a very new product and can be a little quirky, ensure you are following instructions for your converter and pay particular attention to doing things in the right order.
If you continue to have problems you could try capturing your video in imovie 6 or in QT pro.

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