CANON, BAD customer support for new camcorders!

Well, Canon has left mac users out in the cold with their new line of HD camcorders. Instead of writing their own software to download movies from their camcorders, they require that you have imovie 8 or better to do so.

Of course, they don't tell you this before you buy it. They state on their website that it work with imovie but doesn't say that you need a new version. I have imovie 6 HD and thought I would be able to use it. Wrong.

And worse was the bad customer support from Michelle from Canon Customer Relations. Absolutely unapologetic and unhelpful. She says she represents the office of the president at canon, so that speak volumes of how little canon cares for mac users.

NEVER, have i bought a piece of equipment that didn't have software to make it work on a mac.

SO now i have ALL THESE MOVIES ON A CANON HD camcorder that i cannot download unless i purchase a new version of imovie.

CANON, SHAME ON YOU!

Hi!
Welcome to the forums.

First off - don't get totally mad at Canon - this would happen NO MATTER WHAT AVCHD camcorder you purchased - iMovie 06 IS NOT compatible with AVCHD, only iMovie 08 and newer, FCE and FCP 6.06 and newer support AVCHD importing directly. This is something you probably should have checked with Apple first, or come here to ask if your version of iMovie would work with the camera you were looking to buy. Let's face it, you are using a software package that is 4 years old and won't support new technologies (like AVCHD) as they are developed. Also, Canon is using the iMovie logo per Apples specifications (see: http://developer.apple.com/softwarelicensing/agreements/pdf/works_imovie_gdeln.pdf ) - Apple has very specific requirements for how the Works with iMovie logo is to be displayed, and from the pdf, it seems that announcing which version is not part of the logo you're allowed to use.

Now, second - the good news is you can still use the footage. You can download Handbrake ( HandBrake ) and use it to convert the footage - you will have to navigate thru the folder structure to find the mts files and convert each one of them to a container/codec that iMovie '06 HD will support.

I have used Canon cameras on iMovie 08, 09, FCE and FCP and it works quite well - although I understand your difficulty and I sympathize with your anger, but you shouldn't completely blame canon for an old software package not supporting current technology.

Nethfel said:

this would happen NO MATTER WHAT AVCHD camcorder you purchased

Click to expand...

Thank you for your reply.

Once of the problems I have is that companies now feel they can get away with NOT writing software for Mac. They write software for windows and then just leave it up to Apple to figure how to get the movies off their camcorders and onto a Mac.

As a Mac user, shouldn't you also be concerned about this? If everyone just accepts this, then pretty soon mac compatibility will be universally ignored.

Their advertising is misleading. Plain and simple, regardless of Apple's logo specifications. Canon still should have the decency to spell out system requirements, like most all companies do when specifying their products.

Canon has fell short of the bar and they should be called out on it.

I agree to a point. I am very much against hardware companies not providing OSX support for their products or poor driver support for OSX and Macs.

In this case though as Nethfel said, it's all AVCHD camcorders that need the newer iMovie to work. I do agree though with you that Canon should have clearly stated in the specs which version of iMovie you needed as well as any other important spec.

<ps - this line is in reference to retcos post, not dtravis> I guess I don't because of the fact that I rarely, if ever, use manufacturer software with my various cameras unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. Plus, I have a Canon HF100, and it imports directly into all of my software without trouble.

IMHO As Apple already had a method for getting footage out of the camera (iMovie 08 or newer, FCE4 or FCP 6.06 or newer), it falls now upon the user to get the appropriate software to make it work.

You also have to think - for a long time, when you bought a video camera, even a MiniDV camera, DVCam, etc., all you got was a camera (sometimes not even with a lens) - anything having to do with getting the footage into a computer was on your shoulders - Camera makers responsibility is to create a camera and offer a method of storage - it falls upon the makers of editing software to pick up the ball to utilize the footage or files from a given camera. Yes, some cameras do come with software, but not all. Also, Canons storage method is an industry standard AVCHD, quite unlike something like JVC's TOD files. If they were using a proprietary format then I'd agree - they NEED to make software available - but as it's not a proprietary format, to me, the ball lands back in the court of the editing software manufacturers to handle the codecs/containers properly.

As much as I agree with your overall sentiment Nethfel, I do think this is particularly poor form on Canon's part by not at least listing iMovie '08 as a requirement on the product packaging.

But I agree, generally hardware manufacturers like Canon, Samsung, JVC, Kodak, etc really shouldn't bother with software anyway - it's almost always useless. And on Windows, many times it's a resource hog and insists on starting up with the OS.

Fortunately, it's well worth the upgrade to the latest iLife. When iMovie '08 came out, it was pretty crappy, but '09 is awesome.

Although I agree that manufactures could be more forthcoming with information, the fault really lies with you as a consumer. You failed to do the basic research necessary to get a good result. Period.

If you keep the camera, the video forum here is a great place for information. In fact your questions have likely already been asked and answered.