iMovie ~ Not recognizing .mpg Handycam Video

[MacFly69]

hello. i have family visiting and they have a Sony handycam with hard drive. since they need to free up space, i offered to download the video's on to my Mac. i am a total n00b when it comes to iMovie!

i was going to try and piece together all the cips via iMovie, but it won't recognize it?! it's in an mpeg, which i thought would be the format it should be in.

advice? thoughts?

 

[spinnerlys]

Some topics on this issue: MRoogle search results

What model is the Sony, and what version of iMovie do you have?

Can't you drag the clips from the Sony Handycam via Finder (if it is visible in Finder as an external device) to your hard drive and then onto the iMovie icon in the dock?

Maybe have a look around at Sony's support page for drivers for the specific model, maybe it needs drivers to download videos from the camera.

iMovie '08 supported camcorders: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1014


EDIT: Also MPEG-2 has to be converted by iMovie into an editable format. - seems not to be true

SEE POST BELOW TO SEE WHAT SOFTWARE TO USE TO CONVERT MPEG-2 TO SOMETHING iMOVIE WILL READ.

 

[jackerin]

Also MPEG-2 has to be converted by iMovie into an editable format.

No, iMovie does not convert MPEG-2 by itself. You will need to use either MPEG Streamclip + Quicktime MPEG-2 component or a video converter such as ffmpegX.

 

[spinnerlys]

Thanks for clarifying that jackerin.