Mpeg movies won't drop into imovie 4 or idvd

When I try to drop a movie clip from my sony camera that has been imported onto my powerbook into imovie 4 or idvd it says it "can't open file. It opens and plays in quick time, it drops into a friends imovie 4 on his powerbook, but not on mine.

Hi bp66 - welcome to the forum!
I know you say it works on your friend's iMovie 4, but here are some links to discussions and articles about this problem of importing MPEG:
Using MPEG camera Clips or DVD Footage:
http://danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/tips_tricks/6018.shtml
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=232703&tstart=0
http://danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/tips_tricks/6010.shtml
http://www.moviecodec.com/topics/5155p2.html
but especially:
http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/%7Eshmhav/SVCDon_a_Macintosh.html#edit_convertMPEG
MPEG StreamClip:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/mpegstreamclip.html
Apple MPEG2 PlayBack:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/
A bit of light reading for you!

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