Sony Handycam as a gift... any advise?

[Ruffian829]

Hi everyone- my parents got me a Sony Handycam DCR-SX44 for my birthday, which I quickly found out was not Mac-Friendly. Despite the fact that my parents told the Bestbuy sales person that I have a mac (surprise, surprise) they were assured that it would work fine. Anyways- I figured out that I can get the videos onto my mac via going through the disc that pops up when I connect, then into one of the folders, dragging and dropping them onto the desktop, and opening them with VLC... but this does not allow me to edit them or anything, and it would be really nice to be able to import them easier.

Does anyone have any suggestions on dealing w/ the sony handycam and a mac OR any suggestions on mac-friendly digital camcorders that are similar to Sony? I have no problem returning this camera for another. The things that I am looking for are mainly to record to a memory card (internal memory is nice too but not completely necessary), to be able to record inside (I was told that the flip cameras do not do well in low-light, indoor recording), and something about the same size - we're expecting our first baby in March and just want something decent to take videos with and be able to send them to the grandparents easily

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Hi everyone- my parents got me a Sony Handycam DCR-SX44 for my birthday, which I quickly found out was not Mac-Friendly. Despite the fact that my parents told the Bestbuy sales person that I have a mac (surprise, surprise) they were assured that it would work fine. Anyways- I figured out that I can get the videos onto my mac via going through the disc that pops up when I connect, then into one of the folders, dragging and dropping them onto the desktop, and opening them with VLC... but this does not allow me to edit them or anything, and it would be really nice to be able to import them easier.

Does anyone have any suggestions on dealing w/ the sony handycam and a mac OR any suggestions on mac-friendly digital camcorders that are similar to Sony? I have no problem returning this camera for another. The things that I am looking for are mainly to record to a memory card (internal memory is nice too but not completely necessary), to be able to record inside (I was told that the flip cameras do not do well in low-light, indoor recording), and something about the same size - we're expecting our first baby in March and just want something decent to take videos with and be able to send them to the grandparents easily

You basically have two options:

1. A still camera with high-quality video mode that records in Motion JPEG (which imports into iPhoto, that iMovie can read.)

2. A video camera that records in MPEG-2 or AVCHD format. (Note: A still camera whose video mode is AVCHD falls in this category.)

The iMovie compatible list is available on Apple's site.

Either MPEG-2 or AVCHD take a LONG time to import, as iMovie converts them into "Apple Intermediate Codec" during import. One of the (few) iFrame format cameras will import the video directly, as iFrame is a modified version of AVC that is made to be easier to edit-in-place.