Importing clips back from DV camera...240 clips, then trouble

Question

Hi all,
Yes I'm trying to take a lot of people's advice in these discussions about saving to DV tape and then re-importing in the time-line of a new project but .... have been trying for days to re-import an hour and a half of footage but everytime we get to clip no. 240/244, it all goes bad.
Either it just stops importing right then and there and the camera stops playback or, it all looks like it's taken the whole 60 minutes of clips from the tape but then you scroll through the clips in the timeline and notice that after about 5 minutes all the clips are black. Each clip has a duration time but there is nothing showing on the viewfinder. Also it then won't let you save. You have to force quit.
I've tried just about everything to fix this including cleaning heads on camera (in case it is recording or playing back in a fashion that is interpreted as corrupt), using virgin tape each time in case it is faulty tape and also using different drives. One external, one internal.
Just SD not HD and the camera is a Sony TRV-900.
By the way the clips are short and sharp.... most of them between 1.5 seconds and 3 seconds. This means if I did manage to re-load all the footage back into a new time-line in a new project, there would be something like 700 - 800 clips. Is this the problem perhaps.
I would dearly love to have someone's feedback on this.
Thanks in anticipation and happy Easter.
Peter L

Answer 1

I have no idea if these ideas will help, but here's what I'd try:
1. Do NOT use LP when recording to the TRV900.
2. Be sure the camera is set to record 16-bit audio, not 12-bit. If it's 12-bit, the audio coming back to iMovie may be causing the problem.
3. Try exporting to the camera with NO audio. If audio is the problem, that should fix it.
4. Try turning on the preference "Play through to camera". As you play the movie, press the Record buttons on the camera. When THAT video is imported, does it fail too?
5. iMovie has a minimum duration for each scene that it applies when importing from the camera. (I forget what it is.) Your short clips may be shorter than what iMovie uses, causing clips to "merge". Shouldn't affect anything else, though. But to avoid any confusion, try turning off importing with scene breaks.
6. The underlying cause may be a FireWire issue, of course. Have you tried a different port and a different cable? Are you still able to successfully import OTHER video you've shot with that camera?
Karl