Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Sony HDR-SR11

Does anyone know if imovie 08 supports Sony's new HDR-SR11?

Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Posted on Feb 15, 2008 2:29 PM

Reply
53 replies

Mar 25, 2008 7:39 PM in response to qsack

Having fallen in love with Sony's latest HD Handycam, the SR11, I too was hesitant to purchase, based on the overwhelming amount of doubts and consternation I have been reading here and elsewhere on the web regarding compatibility with iMovie '08. Let me be the first to put your fears to rest:

*YES, THE SONY HDR-SR11 IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH iMovie '08 ON AN INTEL MAC!*

Cue the Halleluja chorus, let loose the fireworks!

Not wanting to subject myself to a 15% re-stocking fee to find out what Apple has thus far failed to post in their camcorder compatibility white paper, I persuaded one very helpful young man at my local Best Buy to unlock their floor model and hook it up to one of the Macs in their newly-installed Mac retail display. What we discovered during that exercise clinched the deal for me, and I left the store with a brand spanking new SR11.

Here's the deal: I'm running a 24" aluminum iMac (1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM and OS X 10.5.2) with iMovie '08 version 7.1.1. When I plug the SR11 into one of the USB ports on the keyboard (stands to reason any USB port will work), and activate the "HD USB Connect" Option via the camera's instructions, it mounts on the desktop as "No Name". If you're the adventurous type who likes to dig around in the file structure of these devices, there's your chance. But you needn't bother.

With the camera connected and mounted on the desktop, I launched iMovie '08 and was greeted (very briefly) by a "New Camera Discovered" popup. It flashed so fast that I didn't have time to see what it said, but was immediately replaced with the Import From Camera Dialogue. I could see there as well that the Camera shows up as "No Name" in the list of devices.

All of the HD clips I had shot thus far were nicely arranged in a thumbnail panel at the bottom of the dialogue, where I was able to select and individually preview all of the content before importing it.

I pulled one clip (1 min, 15 sec) into a new event, and it transfered pretty much at 1:1 speed. It may have taken a few seconds longer than the actual clip duration to create the timeline thumbnails, but there it was, in all its full 1290 x 1080 glory, ready for editing.

One last word on the import: iMovie transcodes the content to Apple Intermediate Codec (which, at 865MB for that 1.25 minute clip, I'm guessing is uncompressed), and muxes the Dolby 5.1 surround (if you were capturing it) down to stereo. I'll be looking for ways around that one issue in the weeks to come, but for now, consider this a successful test of the Sony HDR-SR11 with iMovie '08.

Mar 26, 2008 5:10 AM in response to Steve Mullen

I haven't really had a chance to put it through its paces yet, but I like what I see so far. I was rolling the footage back on a 42" Philips Plasma in 1080i (which does a ton of really cool noise & artifact management without being obvious about it), so I couldn't say whether there were any significant artifact problems -that's probably something I'll be more sensitive to after a couple days of using it.

I can say that the SR11 does exhibit typical (which is to say poor) Sony autofocus performance in moderately low light. But I spend most of my time in manual focus anyway, so the worst I can say is they still haven't improved it.

I'll be taking it out this weekend and doing some side-by-side comparison footage with my friend's HDR-FX1, and I'll keep you all posted.

Mar 28, 2008 5:28 AM in response to Steve Mullen

UPDATE

The Sony HDR-SR11 is indeed one of those models that will earn a "delete your DV footage before trying to import" disclaimer in iMovie. Trying it out yesterday with both DV and HD footage on the drive, only the DV footage shows up in the import preview dialogue.

The good news is, importing DV footage (if you bother) is nearly instantaneous. It seems to be copying the MPEG-2 DV file right off the hard drive at full USB transfer speed, no transcoding.

Once you eliminate all DV footage from the camera, the HD footage will show up in the dialogue. I recommend using the camera to delete footage, vs. trying to mess around with it via finder and the mounted volume. No telling how THAT will put Sony in a tizzy.

Mar 29, 2008 6:39 PM in response to Veggeep

Veggeep,

Thank you for the information on the SR11. It's been very helpful. And I understand the need to delete the DV footage prior to importing ACVHD files. Just bought an SR11 myself. I'm still using iMovie HD and am about to order iLife '08 (just upgraded to 10.5.2). Right now, my Mac will not even 'see' the ACVHD files on the SR11's hard drive. It sounds like upgrading to iMovie '08 is what I need in order to import and work with Sony's AVCHD formated file. I'll give it a whirl.

Again...thanks very much.

Mar 31, 2008 8:11 PM in response to Steve Mullen

So true! I've been shooting a DV camera for so long, I'm just used to calling everything my old Sony +used to do+ "DV". The correct terminology is "Standard Definition".

For anyone who wants to know, these are the shooting modes on the HDR-SR11:

_High Definition:_
*HD FH* (16Mbps) AVCHD (MPEG-4/H.264) 1920 x 1080/50i
*HD HQ* (9Mbps) AVCHD (MPEG-4/H.264) 1440 x 1080/50i
*HD SP* (7Mbps) AVCHD (MPEG-4/H.264) 1440 x 1080/50i
*HD LP* (5Mbps) AVCHD (MPEG-4/H.264) 1440 x 1080/50i

_Standard Definition:_
*SD HQ* (13Mbps) MPEG-2 29.97 fps 720 x 480 (anamorphic 16:9) and 640 x 480 (4:3)
*SD SP* (10.44Mbps) MPEG-2 29.97 fps 720 x 480 (anamorphic 16:9) and 640 x 480 (4:3)
*SD LP* (7.5Mbps) MPEG-2 29.97 fps 720 x 480 (anamorphic 16:9) and 640 x 480 (4:3)

Apr 1, 2008 11:15 AM in response to Erik Bjørgum

This hard drive camera records using MPEG-2. That is the same as most all of the new DVD cameras.

This format is for playback and is not intended to be used as an editing format in older versions of iMovie.

You will need to convert that format into a DV format that imovie can use.

MPEG Streamclip http://www.alfanet.it/squared5/mpegstreamclip.html is free and Apple's QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/
is about $20.00. They are the tools that you need to download to convert these files.
Once you have done that, export to DV Stream (.dv) and import it into iMovie.

Sue

Sony HDR-SR11

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.