[The Jackalope]

Ok, just the other day I picked up a Sanyo Xacti digital video camera here in Hiroshima. It records MP4 movies and connects to any computer using USB2. Now, I am able to download the movies into my Powerbook, but Image Capture won't recognize the movies, so I have to open the camera's drive icon on the desktop and drag and drop the movies into my HD. iMovie will also not recognize the camera when it is connected either.

I can view these films with Quicktime, but iMovie will not recognize them at all. This is my first time using this app, so I am a bit surprised. Is MPEG4 not supported with iMovie? And does final cut express support it if iMovie doesn't? Are there any other apps you would recommend for this as well?

Thanks for listening to the newbie...

Edit: I realize that MPEG 4 is not an ideal format for editing. I am just hoping that it can be done. This is my first digital video camera (hell, my first video camera of any kind), and it was pretty much bought as a lark.

[scottiB]

Try converting the MPEG-4 QT to a DV QT (with a 720x480 or 640x480 resolution @ 29.97 fps if not already) using QuickTime Pro, then drag these to the iMovie project's clips pane.

[tr]

iMovie and FCE are both DV editing apps. they only edit video in DV format.

you can import the movie into iMovie by drag dropping the movie file into the timeline, and iMovie will convert the mpeg-4 file into DV for you, it might take some time, though.

tr

[The Jackalope]

Cool, those answers were just the ones I was looking for. Thanks a lot!