HELP, I'm a newb with camera and imovie!

Before I go into the problem, please understand that I am completely clueless when it comes to computers. I do not use them in my line of work, so my knowledge doesn't go much past surfing the web, sad I know.

Today I picked up a Canon HF R10 for the sole purpose of getting good quality video of my son's football games. I am really interested in going from camcorder to imovie to youtube. While I was at Best Buy, I called over to the Apple store to make sure that the cam would be compatible. The girl I spoke with was extremely helpful and said that the camera is perfect and she actually uses the same one for her film class. She told me that all you have to do is plug in the USB cable to the Mac (3 months old) and imovie will automatically pop up. Well, its not happening that easy. I am very confused on the discs that came with the camera. Two of them say they are for Windows, and the other just says Instruction manual, photo applications, music data disc. I installed this disc and it did not solve the prob. I opened imovie to see if it would bring up the vids I took today, and it doesn't show up. It just tells me to connect a vid cam when the cam is already plugged in. HELP PLEASE! Thanks

I doubt you'll need any of the software that came with the camcorder.

Sorry if this is what you've already tried but please try the following:

1. Run software updater (to make sure your system is up to date)
2. Try a mouse/pen drive/keyboard anything USB in your mac to be sure the USB port is working ok.
3. assuming all is well this far start iMovie
4. connect your camcorder and power it on
5. click the camera icon in iMovie (middle, left of the iMovie window)
6. a capture window should appear like this:
imovie+09.jpg (image)

7. if your camera doesn't show up automatically you can select it from the list bottom left of the import window.

Post back with the results.

This is starting to suck. I tried what you said, the camera isn't showing up. When I click on the vid camera symbol on the left it brings up my web cam!

So you've got all the latest updates installed and confirmed your USB ports work OK?

And your camera doesn't show up in the drop down list bottom left?

Does the cameras hard disk show up with your other disks in the Finder sidebar?

Have you tried the camera in different modes? Playback/Record etc?

Am I write in thinking that your camcorder uses SD cards?

If so have you tried using the SD card in the card reader of your Mac (assuming it has one, most new Macs do and you say yours is only 3 months old)?

Something else to note is that manual for the HF R10 implies that the camcorder must be on mains power first before you connect it to your Mac

Sorry for the disjointed posts!

My wife's camera is a canon, different model, but after plugging it in with the camera's power off, the viewfinder light up with a list of options of which I have to choose "PC" and then the Mac recognizes it.

Sorry for not getting back. I'm not sure what I did, but I did get it to work. I think it had something to do with opening imovie first. I was really hoping that imovie would automatically open when I plugged in the camera, oh well no biggie.

Today I'm off to the Apple store for my first one on one lesson. Hopefully I can get good at this imovie thing. I am pretty excited to get going.

Thank you for taking time to help me out, I appreciate your kindness!

Glad you got it working. and thanks for posting back.

The model you purchased is what I decided on also. Best Buy advertised them but do not have any. Are we allowed to mention online companies and ask if they are considered reputable?