Canon Vixia HF S21 import into imovie 11', ease,down grade?, results to DVD

Here is a [video shot with that camera.|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXU8uveDhQI] THis is the PAL version of the camera, but a US version should be similar.

Keep in mind that this is 1920x1080. If you burn this to DVD you will be converting to standard definition.

Message was edited by: AppleMan1958

I just bought this camera and have been unable to import the video into iMovie. How do you do it. Everything is grayed out.

I kept working with it and was finally able to do it by importing directly from the camera. What I wanted to be able to do is copy the video files to the computer using the finder and then to import into iMovie. I don't seem to be able to do it this way. With my cellphone I am able to do it that way. On the Canon there does not seem to be any recognizable files that can be dragged and dropped onto the desktop.
Of course what my ultimate goal was, was to use iMovie to edit the video and then copy it back to the camera to play. Why? So I could have files larger than 4 gigs to play on my TV. I'm limited to 4 gigs on the USB drives.

You can't put the video back onto the camera. You'll need to get bigger USB drives.

The problem isn't the size of the USB drive, but rather that the USB drives are formatted with FAT32 which only allows up to 4 gig in file size.

Use Disk Utility to reformat the drive in Mac OS Extended.

I just made a test recording with the HF 21s and was able to get it into iMovie. I haven't exported it, because it was too short and taken indoors by the ceiling light, so not a good example of what it can do. I have imported video from my HV 10 miniDV camcorder and exported to a USB drive. The video is of excellent quality.
Re: reformatting a USB drive with Mac OS Extended. I haven't tried that yet. I was (am) not sure if the Samsung Blu Ray would recognize it with Mac OS on it. I'll try that and see. If it doesn't work that way, is it possible to reformat it back to FAT 32 with Disk Utility?

What does the Samsung Blu-ray have to do with the USB drive? Yes, you can reformat back to DOS but you absolutely do not want if you are using this drive for video applications on a Mac.

What I'm doing is taking my video and using iMovie to edit it. There is no way to save the iMovie video back to the camera (either the HV 10 or the Canon HF 21S.) So, I save the completed movie to the USB drive. I have to change the exported file name to .mp4 extension first. Then I plug the USB drive into the Blu Ray player and play the video on my Samsung 55 inch TV. Works great. The only limitation I've found is, as I have said, the 4 gig limit on the USB drive. I have had to take most movies and process them in 2 parts to keep down the file size. Doesn't matter, because the Blu Ray player will automatically jump to the next file after it plays the first. Just have to name them so they will load in the correct order. When I said that I wasn't sure about reformatting the drive to Mac OS, I meant would the Samsung Blu Ray recognize and read the files if they were saved on the USB drive with that OS. It is important that everything will be compatible with the Samsung. That is why I could not save the .mov file to the USB drive. It will play the file if it has the .mp4 extension, but not the .mov. You do not have to change anything but the extension.

I meant would the Samsung Blu Ray

No idea. Try it. You might also think about getting a Blu-ray burner to make discs.

"You might also think about getting a Blu-ray burner to make discs."

I'm just trying to take Apple's lead. They obviously do not think that Blu Ray will last, since they seem to have no intent to make any hardware or software to create them. Also, my informal research indicates that memory is the coming media on which to store video.

That's Apple's direction, but you're using a Blu-ray player. That's designed for playing a Blu-ray disc, no? There are other media center delivery solutions such as AppleTV, which Jobs' sees as the future.