JVC Everio GZ-HD3U to iMovie 09

I just bought a MacBook Pro (500 gig hd) to use for
my video editing. I've read many on-line tips and solutions
to connect the two devices. No solution yet.
That's why I just signed up here.

My Mac specs: OS 10.6.4. 4 Gig RAM. 500 gig HD.
Intel core 2 duo processors.

Here's what I've seen happen:
Connect the 2 with USB cable, I see the
camera drive on the Mac, but iMovie doesn't see it.
(I then downloaded a couple free conversion
apps. They work. slow process. I don't to
make this any harder than it has to be,
and I don't want to lose quality.
If it has to be thru a converter,
I can buy one and batch process everything.)

Today I bought a firewire cable.
4-9 pin. The mac sees the camera
and iMovie sees it. When I get to the
Import Video part, I get a blue screen only.
It recognizes that it's playing, or paused,
or stopped, but it doesn't import anything.
It even shows the elapsed time.
The New Event I created has nothing in it.

I originally had the camera set to record in
XP mode and there are still some movies
on the camera that are in that format.
I've had it on 1440 CBR for some time now.
I'm wondering if having the XP files on the
camera may be why I'm not seeing
anything in iMovie thru the firewire.

Any ideas?

Me too!

I've been searching the internet for this answer for some time now and have STILL not found an answer. Your situation is the same as mine. I have a JVC Everio GZ-HD3U. I lost my USB cord, so I connect it to my MBP via firewire that I picked up from Radio Shack. iMovie can see the camera when I try to import, but all I get is a blue screen. Just like your situation. It recognizes when it's playing, paused, stopped, but the screen stays blue and nothing get's imported. Anyhow, were you ever able to figure it out? I've got so many good memories on the camera that I'd like to put on my computer, but I can't seem to do anything with it. So bummed!

The camera records in MPEG2 format. iMovie won't import those. You'll need to transfer the file into Finder then use MPEGStreamclip to convert to a Quicktime or DV format for iMovie. Also you may need to buy Apple's MPEG2 playback componant for Quicktime.