Opens and plays correctly in the viewer, but of zero length in the browser.

Question

The song I sing to FC is "I can't get started with you." It probably is my fault because I don't come in the front door like the rest of you, with capture from a camera. I come from Still Life, exported to iMovie. Unfortunately, Still Life seems to label the .MOV as coming from an old version of iMovie, even though I am using iMovie HD 6.0.1. Final Cut Pro will not import my .MOV.
I have contacted Granted Software about removing the erroneous designation. In the meantime I tried a workaround by exporting from iMovie HD 6.0.1 to Quick Time Pro 7.04. I got a .DV and Final Cut opened it. Unfortunately, it opened it in the viewer and I do not know how to get it to the Browser and the TimeLine, where I can add the great effect which I want. It did play in the viewer.
I then tried going directly from Still Life to Quick Time Pro and again got a movie that Final Cut would open and which would play in the viewer. This time the sequence did seem to appear in the Browser, but, Item Properties Sequence 1, while showing correctly much data about the sequence, was blank when it came to size.
My Final Cut Pro is an upgrade from Final Cut Express HD 3.0, so I opened the same movie in FCE. Same result. Looked good in the viewer, as my consolation prize.
Given that few of you travel this path, I am not overly optimistic about chances for a solution. But I thought I would ask. Gentlemen? Ladies?
Lucky Man
PBG4 17   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  
PBG4 17   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  

Answer 1

I'm the grumpy guy around here. It just seems to me that everyone expects to install FC Studio and be Dede Allen overnight. Just rubs me the wrong way is all. There's a pretty steep learning curve with Studio, especially for someone who wanders in from left field (OH, wait, Rand-- right field) and I certainly expect someone to at least TRY before asking the most basic questions. I've been working with this program since version 1 and I'm still learning things about it.
The dsr-11 is a little workhorse of a deck. It's a real basic unit-- no vu meters, timecode or user bit display etc. But for getting your DV material into and out of fcp it's just fine. I've had mine for over 5 years now and it's steady as a rock. I've never had ANY issue with it. TIP OF THE DAY: Don't get clumsy and knock the door off. And insert small tapes gently. It takes it's time with tape insertion, unlike an old 3/4 or beta sp deck where you can slam tapes in and out without a second thought.
Yeah, the manuals are pithy, but you know, there is a lot of great stuff to be learned from them. One of the things I love about fcp is that there are multiple ways to do any one thing, depending really on your workflow and methodology, and basic approach to a computer system. you can find things in pulldown menus, by keystroke commands, in folders in the browser. Actually it's easy to teach your self to skim the manuals-- there always seems to be an intro page or pages that describe in excruciating detail a particular function. If you grasp that, or know already WHAT the function is, you can skim forward to the HOW.
DO learn the keyboard as much as you can. Dragging clips around is a sloppy way to work, in my never very humble opinion.