i am having trouble with downloading videos from my Sony HDR-XR160 video camera. iMovie doesnt open up when i connect the camcorder. any suggesions?
Connect the camcorder and then start up iMovie.
Ensure you are in the correct camcorder mode usb-PC.
Ensure the camcorder is plugged into AC Power.
See if the computer detects the device. Either mounted as an external volume or in System Profiler.
Take a look at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1793 and http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3720
Depending on how many clips you have on the camcorder, it may take awhile to detect. I have seen instances where 300 clips took 15mins for iMovie to parse and then display the camcorder.
On the rare circumstance, you may have to initialize the camcorder for iMovie to work with it. I have yet to reproduce this issue, but I have seen others that experienced this.
I did follow that sequence in connecting the camcorder to my MacBook Pro. When the usb connect conected two items showed up on the screen, PMB Portable (HDR-XR160) whic contains the file PMB Mac. A window also appears that is labeled with the same name and has the movis sequences in the window. I can play the movies on my MacBook but when I try to save I get a message saying i need to use iMovie to save the movies. The second item that appears on the screen is labeled No Name. When I look in the No Name it has AVCHD, AVF Info and DCIM files. When I try to import the AVCHD into iMovie it doesnt work. So im not sure what to do next.
Well, now that I updated to iMovie 11 the import window appears and an array of clips of the videos (supposedly) also appear. However each clip has the number 60 in the center with a red circle/diagonal line through it (clipbustesr?) and the actal videos dont open to be able to import them into iMovie. What do I do now?
Looking up your camera online, I found it is capable of 1920 x 1080 Full HD 60p Recording. It's the 60p (60 frames per second Progressive) that's the problem I think. iMovie '11 will do 60i (Interlaced). You might need to convert it from the format the camera currently uses into another format to get it into iMovie. Read more about it on this link here: How to import 60p footage From that message thread comes the recommendation to use ClipWrap to convert the camera's video clips now that they are in 60p:
Use ClipWrap to rewrap to QuickTime. Import the files. Edit in either 59.94 or 29.97. The latter if you want to use the high frame rate for slomo
Thanks for the tip! I went into the camera menu and did see that it was set at 60p. I changed it to 60i and was able to easily import into iMovie. Since most of my videos will be family, children sports and vacation related the 60i will probably suffice. I was also considering changing the HD setting to STD setting just because I am concerned about the file size.
Use your best judgement if STD is good enough and you want to shoot lots of events, go with STD. Something else to consider as a bit of insurance against filling up your hard drive is buying an external hard drive as soon as you can afford it. iMovie allows you to move your Events to an external HD at any point, so you can keep on shooting and importing without crashing the Mac. And the only reason I say this is because I've read so many people desperately trying to free up some hard drive space because of problems in iMovie. My guess is people try to go the HD video route for a while, but 40GB/hour of video is a lot of space. STD video will be almost 1/4 of the HD space, roughly 13GB/hour of video. So balance your needs with the space you have available. Good Luck.
Hi,
a very useful post, since I seem to have very similar issues, but a different sony camera. Just bought a Sony HDR-CX700E (European market). Its a flash memory type. Using iMovie 09 and OSX 10.6.7, imovie doesn't recognise the camera for importing video clips.
I get the same useless Sony icons on the desktop described above - PMB, NoName etc....
Any ideas much appreciated...
Thanks, Paul
First read through this Discussion Thread: Does Mac support 1080p video?
If you are using iMovie '09 I don't know whether or not it can import HD footage shot in 1080 50p (PAL format). Try doing some searches here on the iMovie Discussion Group using these terms in the search box:
HD
50p
iMovie 09
Well, after all this great discussion and tips I will be returning my Sony HDR-xr160. I tried the standard format instead of the hd and the video was horrible even worst than my older Sony camcorder that recorded directly to mini DVDs. I even tried the hd at 60i since iMovie doesn't recognize 60p and the video wasn't very good the outlines of people and objects were very wavy. Also if you record in AVCHD and put on a DVD you can't play it in standard DVD players. Since my main purpose for a camcorder was to record family events, vacations etc I feel that the this particular model doesn't meet my needs-keep it simple!
I purchased a Canon VIXIA HF R21 and had no issues connecting to iMovie 11 and downloading some test video clips. However when I burned the video to a DVD in iDVD the quality was not very good. When I checked the settings in the camcorder they were set at default values of SP (1440x1080) and 60i. My other recording options include MXP (1920x1080)-but you can only save to Blu-ray discs; FXP (1920x1080); XP and LP (1440x1080). My objective is to be able to burn to a DVD using iMovie t edit and iDVD to create the DVD. Since I dont know which como of settings would create what I'm after does anyone that is more tech savvy in this area have any suggestions?
When you sent the project from iMovie to iDVD did you do it through Share to iDVD? The other better choice, higher quality output choice is to Share to Media Browser first. Choose Large Size. Then within iDVD click on the Media Button, then the Video Button. In the media browser window under the iMovie star icon you should see the name of your project. Drag that into the iDVD project then burn your DVD. There's a big difference in visual quality between both of these routes to iDVD. Surprisingly Share to iDVD uses MPEG2 encoding, Share to Media browser uses MP4, but the final output still looks way better.
Yes I went through Share to iDVD. I'll try the other way. Thanks for the help!
One added benefit of going through Share to Media Browser instead is it is WAY more stable. On the iMovie Discussion Forum there are countless stories about iMovie hanging on a Share to iDVD and never finishing. It will just run forever. However Share to Media Browser doesn't suffer from the same issue, it will always complete the process. Once it's shared then you quit iMovie and launch iDVD. No chance of instability whatsoever.
It worked great! Thanks for the help. I recorded at XP (1920x1080) and 60i and the DVD looked good in both the Blu ray and standard dvd players (better in the blu ray though). Would the quality be better if I recorded in 24fps or 30fps? I noticed that these are two options when creating a project in iMovie.
I think 30fps is perfectly good, 24p is kind of a "film effect" choice, but I don't know if there's enough of a difference. I always chooose compatibility over special effects, and 30fps is pretty widely used.
RE: Blu-ray probably looks better due to all the extra circuitry sitting between the player and the video output. There's a bunch of processors in there to do up-scaling of the Standard Def frames (640x480/720x480) contained on the DVD. Depending on the player, it Up-scaled DVDs can look better than they would on a consumer level DVD player. So you're getting more your money's worth playing back on Blu-ray even if it's a standard Def DVD.
Glad you could see a visible difference in the quality, Good Luck.
i am having trouble with downloading videos from my Sony HDR-XR160 video camera. iMovie doesnt open up when i connect the camcorder. any suggesions?
