Captured video when played becomes a crazy complex pixel mess! HELP! ASAP!

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"..a pixelated mess of various different colored blocks.." sounds like the picture has become scrambled: those pixellated blocks are incomplete digital data which can't be properly presented as video because bits are missing.

It might be that this was recorded at LP (Long Play) speed, and there's some slight tracking problem, especially as it was dropped! LP recordings have a far narrower width of recorded track, and any slight fault in head alignment will produce "dropouts" - which you're seeing.

Some camcorders detect these dropouts during replay, and "fill the gaps" with data from the previous frame of movie, so it may look OK on the camcorder. But the actual data transmitted down the cable - but do check the cable on another Mac, or with another device instead of the camcorder - may have "holes" in it.

If it's not an LP tape, but just ordinary SP (Standard Play), try playing the same tape in another camcorder, and importing from that. Try another FireWire cable, too ..maybe that one has a fault. (..Maybe there's a faulty connection on the in-camera FireWire socket if it's been dropped..)

This pixellation often means that the camera's heads need cleaning (..with a cleaning tape..) but in that case you'd see the pixellation in the camera's viewfinder, too, so that's probably not the case here.

If there's another Mac handy, try importing to that with a different FireWire cable. If the result's the same, then it's a transmission-from-camera problem, and the cause could be:

(1) LP recording ..try to stick with SP
(2) Head misalignment after being dropped
(3) Bad connections in camera's FireWire socket, through being dropped

In those cases, try importing from a different camcorder, but that may also be a problem with an LP tape, or if the recording was made after the camera was dropped - and so the recording has been made with a misaligned head and may not play back properly in an uninjured camcorder.

If it plays fine on a Windows computer - and it's a long time since I edited video on a Windows computer, so I'm not up to date with Windows editing programs - that suggests that something's interfering with your Mac's ability to process the video ..which seems odd to me, as I've never known of that to happen, unless you have other "codecs" (..video-handling software..) installed on your Mac.

Perhaps you've installed, or downloaded, some other video-handling software, such as Roxio's 'Toast', or some other 3rd-party program which is interfering with the normal behaviour of Apple's 'QuickTime'.

Better check that your QuickTime is up to date: see which version you're using (start Quicktime, then click on its name, and look at "About QuickTime Player" ..the latest version is QT 7.1.0, downloadable via 'Software Update' just beneath the Apple symbol at the top-left of your screen).

"..I did get a new camera that can take video clips..so maybe I'll stick to that.."

The quality of video clips taken with a digital stills camera is nowhere near the quality of video shot with a proper video camcorder. And there's all the hassle of converting the clips into the correct format for importing into iMovie, too! ..Read what Dan has to say about that in his ever-useful " Unofficial iMovie FAQ"..!