I have lots of video from pre-HD days and was able to digitize them into the older version of iMovie straight from Sony Handycam with Digital8 tape and a firewire. Now, iMovie won't see the camera, nor will it re-open the iMovie projects. Quite a few years between using this process, so just wondering if I need to find legacy software or something?
Hey robozoot,
Because you cannot see your camcorder in iMovie, try out some of the general troubleshooting in the article below. It will have you ensure that the camera is making a connection by looking in System Profiler as well as making sure that iMovie will support the camera.
iMovie: Can't see or control camera or camcorder
http://support.apple.com/en-us/TS1059
Take it easy,
-Norm G.
Hi Norm,
Thanks for the link. My Sony Handycam was Hi8 and Digital8 tape-based, and so here's what I found at the top of the link:
If your camera is tape-based, ensure it is not a Hi-8 or Digital-8 tape. Make sure the footage you recorded is not in Hi-8 format. Some DV cameras may work with Hi-8 footage but iMovie '08 and later does not.
The only issue I have with this … I WAS able to connect the camera to my previous Mac (G5) and its iMovie application (maybe pre-iMovie '08?), and did in fact have the ability to control the camera and import the tape-based clips as movies. I still have that old G5 but I think the iMovie got updated to iMovie '09 and now there's no connectivity.
That's the camera issue. On the application side of things, now I tried re-importing the previous iMovie Projects, and they aren't being seen by even the iMovie '09 anymore.
Can't re-import older iMovie projects
