JVC Everio GZ-MG555 and IMovie

Hey guys,
New to the forum here and definately not a computer wizard.
Anyway I have a 2006 IMac.
I bought the 2007 JVC Everio HDD videocam and brought it home and the software doesn't work with Mac's. Anyway I got some basic software off their reccommended website so I can at least burn the home movies onto a disc.

I read somehwere in another thread that the 2008 IMovie software will support this Videocam. I will probably purchase the new software if that is the case.
A couple of Questions to the Group:
Does anybody know anything about this in more detail?
Will it automatically detect the files from the camera?
Will I have to convert it to some other sytle of program to get it to be recognized in the 08 I Movie software?

I just want to be able to plug my Videocamera into the computer and be able to import it directly into I movie? Will that be possible?
Thanks for the help in advance
Erik

I can't amswer directly but offer a suggestion in case you cannot import from your JVC into iMovie. I use a slightly older JVC Everio with iMovie 06. I cannot import the movie directly to iMovie so I use the free software in the link:

http://www.squared5.com/

The clips can be converted easily to formats compatible with iMovie and I am ready to go from there. Only adds a few minutes to the project time.

But I have also heard that the iMovie 08 should be able to import the JVC videos directly.

Good luck.

Jerry

JVC Everio GZ-MG555 and Imovie 08

Three6ty, I have the exact same setup that you describe. I was having he same problem aswell. I ran out to Apple, purchased ILife 08 and can tell you that it will support our cameras. I have edited a few movies now and even posted on to youtube.

Hi i am in same situation, i have the 40GB version, just bougght today.

the sales showed me by plugging in USB to the computer and imovie found the cam. when i got home, using also imovie o8 i set everything up but nothing..........then i tried using thye craddle and firewire cable (cable not supplied) and once i hit play on the cam imovie asked me if i want to import the movie. i hit yes and then the whole movie plays and imports.

so somehow it works, i just dont understand why it has to play the whole movie on the camera (and the lcd screen)

anyway editing and saving with imovie and idvd was a blast, but imovie and idvd took about 30 minutes each to render and burn the disc with only about 25 minutes of video.

So with your cameera, newmacuser12, it sounds like you can either drag the files over from the HDD to the mac, or you can use firewire to "import" directly to imovie.

This is what most of the miniDV users do. It is basically a realtime capture of what's on the camera. Dragging and dropping the files is faster as far as getting them on the computer, but then you need to convert them to .dv or .mp4 to make them imovie friendly. That's where MPEGStreamclip from www.squared5.com comes in.

Glad you guys are able to get everything working.

Brian