I want to connect via USB and edit with imovie. Or at least, my daughter does!
Option 1
If it has the USB connection already, then you'll want to connect it. See if the camcorder shows up in Finder as a USB Mounted Drive, or maybe a white drive (like an app image when it opens after download).
If so, then you can look through the DVD for the movie clips and drag them into your mac. After that, you may need to convert the files.
Use
MPEGStreamClip to do this. It's a great converter. If they files are in MPEG2 format, you will have to buy a $20 codec from apple. It will tell you if you need it, the first time you try to convert.
Once converted to .dv format you can import directly to iMovie and edit them any way you want.
Steps
1. Connect camera to mac
2. If it mounts as a drive, navigate to video clips and drag to mac.
3. Convert clips to .dv format.
4. Import clips to iMovie for editing.
Option 2
When you connect via USB, open iMovie. ONce opened, click the little camera icon to import video. It will probably select your iSight camera by default. But you should see a drop down box. Click it and see if your Panasonic is in the list. If so, select it, and iMovie should scan it for files to be imported.
Steps
1. Connect camera to mac
2. Open iMovie, click the 'Import' camera icon.
3. If iSight opens by default, look for drop down box, click and see if camera is in list.
4. If so, import video clips directly from camera to iMovie.
Option 3
By a tray loading dvd drive. If you have an old PC around that has the tray loading DVD drive you can buy an enclosure for it, and remove it from the PC to put in the enclosure.
Put the small DVD in the tray load dvd drive, connect to mac, and copy the video to your mac.
Steps
1. Get tray loading dvd drive (external) connected via USB to mac.
2. Put small video camera dvd in tray loading drive.
3. Copy video clips onto mac.
4. Convert clips if necessary.
5. Import clips to iMovie for editing.
Hope one of these works out for you.
