SONY camcorder miniDV tape transfer to iMovie '08

[fortearch]

I have begun transferring video from a SONY DCR-TRV50 camcorder (miniDV tapes) into the latest version of iMovie ’08 using the 4 to 6 pin firwire cable. I run 10.5.4 on a Dual 1.8 GHz powerPC G5. Everything appears to be fine, BUT I cannot transfer the whole 1-hour tape at the same time. I have tried this on many occasions in a variety of ways, for some reason it shuts down the transfer process after 3 minutes, 12 minutes, 18 minutes, 22 minutes, sometimes up to 30 minutes but I cannot transfer the whole thing. And I have no control over how long each transfer will be. UGH! Am I missing something simple – please help as have upwards of 100 hours to transfer and it will be a lot easier to be able to transfer each whole tape?

 

[reap76]

any special tricks on getting this working? When i plug the firewire cable in the camcorder flashes dv in on the screen once or twice, but the camcorder never appears in system profile. any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[mongrol]

When you import do you have the switch on the left of the import window set to Automatic or Manual? Automatic detects where breaks in the film are and may be stopping the import. Set to manual.

 

[sickmacdoc]

To help troubleshoot the issue, I would suggest you download the previous version of iMovie (iMovie HD) as I use it exclusively with a Sony Mini DV camera and it has never exhibited the behavior you described at all.

Since Apple made the previous version freely available (intended for people with iMovie 08 but realistically anyone can download it) it would certainly be worth a try to help troubleshoot. Even if you don't use for your editing (though I could not imagine using 08 instead of HD myself after seeing what 08 turned out like), I feel certain that importing the footage into HD would then allow you to use the footage in 08. You can find the free download of HD here (and don't ask me why it comes up on the Apple Japan site when found on the US site but it works! )