H_S, I can tell you that iMovie did immediately recognize the TRV340. I have not tried to capture/control the camera with FC6.
It was not flawless, here is what I went through:
1) Tried to use the Automatic setting (the tape was at the end). It did rewind and begin playing, but did not show up on the screen. All that showed on the computer was the blue screen, but the counter was ticking away and the camera was playing. I stopped the transfer manually about 20 seconds later. It wrote the thumbnail video and everything was fine. The video did transfer without any problems.
2) I tried the manual setting next. This did not give me the video picture on the computer, either. It stopped counting at 18 seconds, though the camera was still playing. I tried to stop it again and this time it locked up iMovie. I had to Force Quit.
3) After the Force Quit and restart of iMovie, I went directly with manual and started 20 seconds into the video. From there it worked exactly as it is supposed to. No problems.
One more thing I will say about my footage. It is a friend's tape of her European study-abroad program. She used a friend's camera (NTSC) with a PAL video8 90 minute tape. Needless to say I was worried whether or not it would even play in this camera. Upon playing the tape the camera displays what looks like a "Digital8" symbol with an arrow pointing to a "Hi8/8" symbol. I take this to indicate that the original recording was done with an analog camera. One more concern since even the manual does not put any trust into the Sony DCR-TRV340's ability to play tapes from other cameras -- even other DCR-TRV340s!
I will post again once I try FCP with the camera. Though I was worried about the purchase of the non-approved FCP camera, so far, I know I can at least get DV connected and imported through iMovie. Even if I have to transfer it to FCP manually from there, it is easier and better quality than running though AV->DV conversion.
Please, all the pros on this list, correct me where I am wrong.
Thank You.
