sony camcorder and imovie 6

I am not following what you mean. You said +I have a movie on my camcorder and i can get it to download into imovie.+
If you can get the movie into iMovie, what is your question?

What type of camcorder do you have and what media does it record onto? To import to iMovie 6, you need to have your footage on minDV tapes in a miniDV camcorder. If you have any other type of camcorder, such as a hard drive or DVD camcorder, iMovie cannot import from those.

What are you trying to do? Create an iMovie? DVD? Upload to the web?
Post back and be a bit more specific about what you have, what you are doing and what outcome you want.

Oh, I see.
iMovie 6 can only import footage that is on miniDV tapes, not the disks or memory cards or hard drive camcorders.The video is probably MPEG 2 or 4, a compressed format that iMovie cannot read. If you want to use that type in iMovie, you need to convert it to DV format. Conversion may cause some loss of quality. You can use MPG Streamclip for the conversion. Whatever you do, do not put a mini disk into the disk drive of your Mac. It can get stuck and damage the drive, since the Mac is not designed to be used with these mini disks.

Here are some sites that address this.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6799225&#6799225

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6236303&#6236303

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/mpegstreamclip.html

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/

Hi Beverly...Bit late joining this discussion I know but as I trawled thru the forums looking for an answer to my problem I thought you might be able to help.

I have a Sony miniHD (just to be clear..the TAPE format) and cant seem to be able to get iMovieHD6 to recognise it. And its not just iM..the Mac doesnt recognise it either. Im using a firewrire 4 to 6 cable (iLink) everything is switched on but no recognition. Note I didnt instal any of the software that comes with the HC as it seems to be for PC only.

Any ideas how to sort this out ? Maybe I need to set a setting on the camera, or do something on the Mac, but I cant see any way of uploading from the HCam to the Mac. Any thoughts ?

I am in the process of making a video and cannot get imovie to recognize my camera either. It has for years, but now it does not. I am using Imovie 6.03. I use a Sony DV (TVR900), with firewire. I have tried other suggestions on web (plugging, unplugging, rebooting, setting dates/clocks, etc.), but nothing seems to work. I have even tried other dv cameras. I do have Final Cut Express and it does work there. I am just not as familiar with it and need to make a quick video. I need some expertise help on what the glitch could be!

Try this:

Open the Audio MIDI Setup (Utilities folder) and set the default audio output to 44100hZ. Then make sure that the audio output of the camera is set to 16 bits and not 12 bits. Try the camera again.

If no luck try these:

iMovie: Cannot See or Control Camera
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=43000

A Sony fix is suggested here:
http://danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/usage/5020.shtml

Is the source Line out or digital out when doing the settings. Mine were set at 44100.o HZ but the sources (both) are line not digital. The camera was already at 16 bits too. While I wait for your answer I am going to check into your other resources. Thanks for your response.