iMovie - Import from camera...

I noticed this issue, but found a workaround that I wanted to share with the community.

I have a Canon 650D DSLR that takes fullHD movies. I also have a Panasonic HD camcorder that also records fullHD in AVCHD format.

Using iMovie, I take the SD card from the camera slot into my macbook and use the 'import from camera' option in iMovie to select required clips and import.

The AVCHD movies from the panasonic import reasonably well, however, movies from the Canon 650D do not.

When importing from the 650D iMovie estimates completion time in hours (roughly 24 hours to import < 60mins). Any clip over 2minutes long causes iMovie to crash. Watching the memory utilisation during an import I can see the memory slowly increasing, until it runs out - so I'm guessing the crash is caused by an 'out of memory' error or some effect due to this.

The AVCHD import doesn't suffer from this and works normally and memory remains stable during import.

OK - so there seems to be some issue with the 650D movie files, but...

If I use the 'import movie' option from the File menu, and use finder to browse to DCIM directory and locate the .MOV files, then selecting the exact same options for import as per the 'import from camera' - I can successfully import the 650D movies as if they AVCHD. Checking the imported movies I can see that have been properly transcoded to AIC. Import speed seems normal, and memory is stable.

So this is a usable workaround, but a rather bizarre bug.

Using iMove '11 (9.0.8) and Mountain Lion (10.8.2)