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sony sr30 hdd camcorder

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scotty

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HI all,

just purchased a sony sr30 hdd camcorder, cant get my imac to recognise it any suggestions

cheers
 
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trpnmonkey41


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I don't think any hard drive camcorders are compatible with iMovie (I know none of the sony models are)
 
kman445

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wouldnt you be able to take the video off the HDD of the camcorder and put it on your HDD then import it to iMovie?

i would also like to know because im abouyt to purchase a HDD cam and if Macs dont recognize them ill bne angry, i alrerady sold me dvd cam to get mone for the HDD cam :p
 
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Got this from another forum

Don't know for sure if it's compatible. Just keep in mind that most (if not all) hard drive camcorders use MPG2 compression. This is not typically a format meant for editing. iMovie doesn't work with MPG2.

To get MPG2 footage to work with iMovie, you'll have to convert it to DV or MPG4 first. That is a time consuming step and basically wipes out the one major advantage of a HDD camcorder, which is speed. You're better off sticking with a miniDV camcorder until iMovie works with MPG2 footage natively.

If that Sony uses MPG4, there's a chance that it'll work with iMovie. You'll want to verify before purchasing. Just keep in mind that both MPG2 or MPG4 are inferior to DV in terms of quality. Both MPG formats are much more heavily compressed than DV. That's not to say a high quality MPG camcorder can't be better than a low quality miniDV camcorder.
Click to expand...
 
Audio.Trench

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kman445 said:
wouldnt you be able to take the video off the HDD of the camcorder and put it on your HDD then import it to iMovie?

i would also like to know because im abouyt to purchase a HDD cam and if Macs dont recognize them ill bne angry, i alrerady sold me dvd cam to get mone for the HDD cam :p
Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat.. I've been looking to purchase a HDD camcorder for a while now, but haven't found anything that can tell me if it'll work with a Mac.. if Any one can find a HDD camcorder that is Mac-compatible, let me know...

If I used a MiniDV camcorder, does it still record in mpg2? or can I use it on my mac with iMovie?

I'm still fairly new to recording video and using a Mac to edit it.
 
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I just bought the Sony DCR-40 HDD camcorder and ran into the same problems described here. The convenience of the Hard Drive is pretty awesome, but I'm thinking about returning it and going back to Mini DV.

The main problem on the Mac is that iMovie doesn't allow you to import vide from an external device unless its via Firewire. The Sony HDD camcorders are all USB 2.0 (which is ridiculous at this point).

For the videos I've taken so far, I am using Quicktime Pro to convert the Mpeg-2 files to Mpeg-4 so that they will work with iMovie.

I definitely noticed a difference in quality between the Mini DV and the HDD. The Mini DV seems much better. I still have another 12 days or so until I need to return the Sony HDD one to Circuity City...but at this point I don't see how I can keep it when its not Firewire and the quality gets degraded when you convert it.
 
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punkr0x0r said:
I'm in the same boat.. I've been looking to purchase a HDD camcorder for a while now, but haven't found anything that can tell me if it'll work with a Mac.. if Any one can find a HDD camcorder that is Mac-compatible, let me know...

If I used a MiniDV camcorder, does it still record in mpg2? or can I use it on my mac with iMovie?

I'm still fairly new to recording video and using a Mac to edit it.
Click to expand...
Tape camcorders don't record using a codec that you are used to seeing on a computer (mpeg, wmv, avi,etc.). When you import to iMovie it converts the data that is stored into tape into a video format that it can use to edit
 
Audio.Trench

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But isn't MiniDV like a small DVD-typed disk, and not a tape?
 
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No thats a DVD camcorder. MiniDV uses smaller DV tapes

DVD camcorders are also a major hassle because you can't download off of the camera, the quality isn't as good as MiniDV, and the only way you can get the video off is by ripping it off the dvd which can be really tricky since they use smaller dvd's that you can't use in slotloading drives
 
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So what type of camcorder would you recommend to be working with on a Mac?
 
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a MiniDV camcorder
 

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