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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Making Imovies

Mary Helen - Apr 26, 2005 - 10:00 pm

#1. I purchased a Sony DCR-DVD101, which I was told by both the Sony Salesperson and the Apple salesperson that this was compatible with Apple Computers. I have found that this was untrue to date - is there any hope for the future that these mini dvd's will work?

#2. Since I could not get the camcorder to work with the computer, I burned the disc on a dvd burner. I then inserted that new, regular sized disc into my conputer. I does play! However, I can not get this to import on imovie. It said it was importing, but nothing showed up.

I have been trying to get this done for 3 days now, and the project is due tomorrow. Can you please get back to me ASAP?

I have a 1.8 GHZ PowerPC G5 version 10.3.8


Thank You
Mary Helen
530-345-9222

Drumhum - Apr 27, 2005 - 10:41 am

Hi Mary,
I'm Tom. I shall try and give you some help but I do not have first hand experience with this camera. Normally I would wait and see if another tech has more experience but as you are in a hurry I shall do my best:-)

From what I can gather about your camera it is designed to produce DVDs straight from the camera that you can play on standard DVD players. I can assume from this that the DVD produced is in standard DVD format. The issue of compatibiliy mean many things here! If the DVD disk plays ok on a mac then I guess this is what they mean by compatible but by definition of the format it will be difficult to import footage into a movie editor in the normal way.

I'm pretty sure iMovie will not be able to read MPEG-2 clips without the quicktime mpeg-2 decoder. This has to be purchased from apple - see

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/mpeg2playback/

for many tasks quicktime pro is also essential (format conversion etc) see

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/upgrade/

there is a good FAQ on apple site too...

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/produ...yback/faq.html

DVDs are encoded in a Mpeg 2 format which is far from ideal for editing. Normally one would edit in a different format and only turn to Mpeg 2 for DVD production.

If by chance you already have quicktime pro and the MPEG-2 decoder then you could consider this...

When you insert your disk into the mac I guess the DVD player software launches. Quit this and open the disk manually. If you see two folders named "VIDEO_TS" and "VIDEO_TS" then you have a standard video dvd format. This format splits the video and audio files to separate folders and is one reason why it is a difficult format to handle for editing.

In terms of imovie import. how long did you wait for the import before giving up? I am guessing it could well take while for it to do its job and often the progress bar does not represent progress accurately. it could be that you just need to give it more time. iMovie not only has suck the data off a slow disk (compared to your hard drive) but it also has to convert the footage which can take quite a while (especially if you have a slower computer).

Instead of selecting the disk to import, open the DVD manually and look into the VIDEO_TS folder and drag the actual video file ( named with a .VOB I think) to your desktop (or external drive etc). Being video these files may well be large! Then drag this file into imovie. (and cross fingers)

I can't tell you how easy it is to get footage into imovie with a camera with firewire! But you don't want to hear that right now!!!

Sorry if this answer is a little fragmented and not a perfect solution. If there is more info you can supply we can delve a little deeper.

do feel free to get back to me.

regards
Tom

Thanks for using Macosx.com!





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Mary Helen - May 4, 2005 - 10:52 pm

Thanks Tom for your reply....

however, I found a way to transfer before I read your message.. I borrowed the "Dazzle Hollywood" adapter, which is now Pinnacle. I simply plugged my camera into the unit, it had a firewire to plug into my G5. It loaded on my computer as it played on the camera. (I do not know if it could go faster)
I just ordered the new Pinnacle unit, (I do not have it yet)
FYI for you and other people with a problem like mine - the "old Dazzle Hollywood" cost about $300. The new Pinnacle is about $200, and it comes with software for a PC. When I ordered directly through Pinnacle, I told them I had a Mac and I did not need the software - so they only charged me $120. I will let you know if this item does not work - the item should arrive any day.

Thanks agein for your response.

Mary Helen