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Transferring Vids from Sony HandyCam to Mac and editing! (Help!)

V

VypeR

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 26, 2007
12
0
Hello,
I have a Sony HandyCam - DCR DVD908! And I am comparetively a new user to Mac. I have an iMac 24".

I am also new to HandyCams and stuff. I only have a USB cable provided by sony with the cam.

I want to transfer videos that are recorded on the CAM (MINI DVD), on to my Mac HardDrive. And edit them in iMovie HD or any other video editing software (please recommend, not a pro, but don't mind reading and learning, if it's easy to get).

I have different shots of same footage, from different angles. I want to edit it all so it seems like it's in Real Time. Would be cool to Jack Bauerize it aswell, with 2 shots of same footage from different angle, like in 24..

Please recommend something. I am relatively new to this, so please pardon my manners, if I am being too demanding..

Thanks,

V
 
E

Ellie.Rose

macrumors newbie
Mar 6, 2007
9
0
VypeR said:
Hello,
I have a Sony HandyCam - DCR DVD908! And I am comparetively a new user to Mac. I have an iMac 24".

I am also new to HandyCams and stuff. I only have a USB cable provided by sony with the cam.

I want to transfer videos that are recorded on the CAM (MINI DVD), on to my Mac HardDrive. And edit them in iMovie HD or any other video editing software (please recommend, not a pro, but don't mind reading and learning, if it's easy to get).

I have different shots of same footage, from different angles. I want to edit it all so it seems like it's in Real Time. Would be cool to Jack Bauerize it aswell, with 2 shots of same footage from different angle, like in 24..

Please recommend something. I am relatively new to this, so please pardon my manners, if I am being too demanding..

Thanks,

V
Click to expand...

I have almost the exact same problem. I own a Sony Handycam DCR-SR50 and all the files show up on my MacBook as Quicktime mpg. But when i try to play them, an error comes up saying the computer cant read the file format!

Anyone know how to convert these files so i will be able to open/play and edit them on my Mac? Thanks in advance for any info you can give me.
 
S

StereoPair

macrumors newbie
May 15, 2007
6
0
First star to the right and straight on 'til morin
the best way to get your footage onto your mac, is with a EXTERNAL DVD drive if you have recorded to mini-dvd. DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES LOAD THE MINI-DVD INTO THE INTERNAL SLOT LOADING DRIVE. You should also get an external HD to store your video, as it is not a good idea to store your video on the same drive as your editing program (iMovie or FCE)

Before you buy the external burner, connect the USB cable to the camera and then to the mac and see if the camera is recognized by your mac. If it doesn't, then the above is your only recourse.

Sony unfortunately does not play with the mac, and hasn't since apple rejected an offer to be bought by Sony.

Vyper: get either Visual Hub or purchase the Quicktime Pro key. That will solve your proble,
 
killmoms

killmoms

macrumors 68040
Jun 23, 2003
3,752
55
Durham, NC
This is why I don't recommend any DVD/hard drive camcorders to anyone yet—no good ingest solutions for anything besides Windows. Stick to DV if you want to edit. It looks fine, it's easy, and most importantly it works pretty much everywhere.
 
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Ellie.Rose

macrumors newbie
Mar 6, 2007
9
0
StereoPair said:
the best way to get your footage onto your mac, is with a EXTERNAL DVD drive if you have recorded to mini-dvd. DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES LOAD THE MINI-DVD INTO THE INTERNAL SLOT LOADING DRIVE. You should also get an external HD to store your video, as it is not a good idea to store your video on the same drive as your editing program (iMovie or FCE)

Before you buy the external burner, connect the USB cable to the camera and then to the mac and see if the camera is recognized by your mac. If it doesn't, then the above is your only recourse.

Sony unfortunately does not play with the mac, and hasn't since apple rejected an offer to be bought by Sony.

Vyper: get either Visual Hub or purchase the Quicktime Pro key. That will solve your proble,
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. Is there any chance that if i burnt the files off my PC onto say, a dvd-r, that i could put that in the internal slot loading drive of my mac and rip the files onto it, and they would play? [i dont mean a mini-dvd, i mean a full sized one, just dvd-r].

Sorry to keep asking, its just that video editing was one of the main reasons i got this Mac so im pretty desparate to get my files working on there.

Oh, and if the above thing wont work, any recommendations for an external dvd-burning drive that will work with a Mac?

Thanks again for the help so far :)
 
S

StereoPair

macrumors newbie
May 15, 2007
6
0
First star to the right and straight on 'til morin
Ellie.Rose said:
Thanks for the advice. Is there any chance that if i burnt the files off my PC onto say, a dvd-r, that i could put that in the internal slot loading drive of my mac and rip the files onto it, and they would play? [i dont mean a mini-dvd, i mean a full sized one, just dvd-r].

Sorry to keep asking, its just that video editing was one of the main reasons i got this Mac so im pretty desparate to get my files working on there.

Oh, and if the above thing wont work, any recommendations for an external dvd-burning drive that will work with a Mac?

Thanks again for the help so far :)
Click to expand...
If you just want to play the DVD, then yes, burn to a standard DVD-R. but,
you're still going to need an external Hard Drive to if you;re going to edit your footage. The internal HD doesn't spin fast enough handle both the program and the footage. and, as a result, the program will run sloooooooooooooow. Besides, between the temp files, render files, caches and what have you, you will fill your drive fairly rapidly. I work primarily with audio, and I use an external HD for all my files. It keeps my macbook happy.
 
C

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,576
1,692
Redondo Beach, California
THe DVD based cameras are not designed for people who want to edit their work The average consummer who buys these camera will just pop the DVD into their living room player and maybe fast forwards over the bad footage. The problem is that DVDs are encoded in a way such that there is generational loss. When you cut it the cut-off part is no longer exactly the same. Each frame on the DVD is a difference from a previous key frame, so the frames don't stand alone. DV tapes on the other hand are recored such that each frame is like a still image and does not depend on other frames. DV is a much nicer format for editing and record more detail and less compression artifacts

Ok so you have this DVD and don't have a DV tape. There are two ways to go (1) convert it to DV format using any of several external boxes that will do this. The easiest is a DV camera with a "pass through" feature. This works really well. Even a used eBay DV camera with a broken tape transport will do this job well. (2) "rip" the DV using software like "handbrake" and just save it in a format the Quicktime can deal with.
 
E

Ellie.Rose

macrumors newbie
Mar 6, 2007
9
0
Sorry its taken me a while to reply!

Thanks for all the advice, have to say im most interested in the idea of using an external HD, i was thinking of buying one anyway.

Sorry if the next part sounds really stupid of me, but im a newbie to all this:

If i copied the video files off my PC onto an external HD, then copied them from that external HD to my MacBook, would i be able to convert them as i did this into a format that a Mac would like?

Again thanks for all the advice so far, its really appreciated.
 
P

polevault139

macrumors 6502
Sep 24, 2006
342
0
Illinois
I'm not trying to hijack this thread but this topic is right along the lines of what I need to figure out so I figured someone coudl help me.

My family has a Panasonic VDR-M50 DVD Video Camera, and we just got done twith Sectionals for Track, and we recorded me pole vaulting (I made it to state!!). I am trying to import the files onto my computer to make a DVD for my coach. The only files I am seeing are .VOB and the VLC player is the default program to open it. VLC opens but then nothing happens. So I am going to have to get an external DVD drive of what. My dad's Gateway laptop actually has a DVD burner so maybe I can burn a regular size DVD and then get them onto my computer from that.

But my main problem is that file format?? It does play on DVD Player but I want to use iMovie to edit it.
 
S

Starr86

macrumors newbie
Oct 13, 2012
1
0
ChrisA said:
THe DVD based cameras are not designed for people who want to edit their work The average consummer who buys these camera will just pop the DVD into their living room player and maybe fast forwards over the bad footage. The problem is that DVDs are encoded in a way such that there is generational loss. When you cut it the cut-off part is no longer exactly the same. Each frame on the DVD is a difference from a previous key frame, so the frames don't stand alone. DV tapes on the other hand are recored such that each frame is like a still image and does not depend on other frames. DV is a much nicer format for editing and record more detail and less compression artifacts

Ok so you have this DVD and don't have a DV tape. There are two ways to go (1) convert it to DV format using any of several external boxes that will do this. The easiest is a DV camera with a "pass through" feature. This works really well. Even a used eBay DV camera with a broken tape transport will do this job well. (2) "rip" the DV using software like "handbrake" and just save it in a format the Quicktime can deal with.
Click to expand...

Hi, I have found your comment to be useful to me. I used handbrake.
I was wondering if you knew if there was a way to return the footage after editing and exporting to play with quicktime, back into a fresh mini DVD using the camera? :confused:
 
D

daybreak

macrumors 6502a
Sep 4, 2009
531
0
These post are as old as the hills because technology changes but you ask a question.
As been pointed out so many times "What System Are You Using" at present?????????? Yes you can export back to camera.
Set up camera as you would to import into your computer and the software you are using.
Set camera in play mode and standby not record mode. Now play you piece of video and see if it shows up on your viewer in Camera. If so release standby and it should record back to your camera.:rolleyes:
 
K

kokako

macrumors regular
Feb 23, 2011
179
3
I'm not sure about how you'd go capturing USB transport streams from the USB only Sony camcorders, but some of those odd Sonys (excluding - miniDV which was great and a breeze to import into our NLE) had "firewire" that wouldn't "play nice" with FCP and iMovie, like miniDVD and all microMV but could still easily be captured losslessly to your mac using Apples FirewireSDK26 bundle, it's free from developer.apple.com and in that bundle you'll need to use AVCVideoCap to capture the MPEG2-TS stream, that stream can be opened in MPEG Streamclip - free from squared5.com and exported to whatever you'd prefer to edit with in iMovie/Final Cut etc.
 
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