Wow, I've noticed that in the last few days, there have been like 3 first time posters who are so frustrated and impatient with their very first iMovie problems that they're ready to give up or destroy their machines (all without giving us their specs or much other information). I wonder if it's the same person using different names for each issue! Are so many people so mercurial that one issue is all it takes to go from loving their Macs to throwing them out the window?

First of all, having used Windows Movie Maker for years and iMovie for such a short time, I can safely say that iMovie can do FAR more than WMM ever could... you just have to stop trying to make it work like WMM. It's a totally different interface and workflow, and if you have WMM in mind when using it, you aren't going to get very far.

Off the top of my head, I would say that it could be that the original files in your iMovie Events folder have been renamed, deleted, or had their extensions changed. When the window pops up, does it prompt you to locate the missing files? If so, navigate to your iMovie Events folder in the Finder and make sure the files are there and properly named with the correct extension.

Most editing programs work like this: the project files in the program are referring back to the original files on your hard drive. If the original files are moved, renamed or deleted, the program cannot link back to them and will try to search for them. Sounds like this is what's happening here.

If the files are there, and you're sure that your version of iMovie has issues with DV formats, you can try exporting the footage as mov files in Quicktime Player.

But if these files were working before and they haven't been altered or moved, it could be the project file is corrupted, in which case you should start from scratch by importing the footage into a new project.