Timecode in iMovie '09

Question

I have set the playhead to display the date and time, but it does NOT display the timecode from the imported video. The playhead shows the date and time of the import when skimming over the video clips. I imported from miniDV tape based Panasonic DVX100A using a firewire cable.
What am I missing?

Answer 1

Steve is right in a sense. iMovie does not support Professional timecodes that allow you to sync multiple cameras. However, iMovie does support the date and time metadata that comes with consumer camcorders.
If you import directly from the camera, the date and time metadata should be preserved. If you import from a file, it may have the file creation date.
If you know the date and time of a clip, you can rename the clip so iMovie knows the date and time.
Rename as clip-yyyy-mm-dd hh;mm;ss.ext
where hh is the hour in 24 hour time. ext is the existing extension (dv in your case).
Do this before you start editing or it will mess up the existing links in your project.
Do this in the finder. Navigate to Movies/iMovie Events/YourEventName.
Delete any Movie thumbnails or iMovie cache folders. Do the rename for each clip Then open iMovie and let it regenerate thumbnails and cache.
Now when you skim you will have date and time.