Importing into iMovie

Hi,

I don't see your legria HF S20 camcorder displayed in Apple's list of iMovie supported cameras. That might be the problem.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204202#canon

Perhaps the .mov file contains codecs that iMovie does not support. If that's the case, you can try using the free download, Handbrake, to convert the movie to Mp4/AAC that Handbrake will do by default. You would need first to import the movie to your desktop using the Image Capture app in the Applications folder on your Mac. Actually, once the clip is on your desktop you might be able to drag it into an iMovie project without converting it. If it doesn't import, you can convert it.

Alternatively, you can try exporting from your camcorder into the Photos app, and then accessing your video from the Photos item in the iMovie project sidebar. That's the recommended way.

-- Rich

Somewhere in the various new iterations of the operating system and iMovie your camcorder became unsupported.

Can your camcorder record in other than .mov format? If so, try that. Also, try making a test video on your iPhone and see if that will import into your current iMovie 10.1.12. It should. If it does import that would tell you that it is likely a camera format issue.

-- Rich

iMovie 9 will not work properly, if at all, on High Sierra. It doesn't work at all on Mojave.

If your camera has an SD card, are you able to insert it into your computer and drag the video to your desk top?

If you have iMovie 10 on your computer you can update your iMovie 9 projects and events from within iMovie 10, and they will become iMovie 10 projects that you can edit in iMovie 10. You still can keep them in iMovie 9 at the same time.

-- Rich

Another thing: Sometimes imports fail due to a corrupt preference. Try opening iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys and selecting to delete preferences in the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects. Now see if you can import the clip.

-- Rich