Imported DV is missing sound

Try exporting from iMovie at Best Quality (pro res). For some reason that seems to resolve some problems, hopefully this one.

Also, you could try exporting from iMovie at any other setting but Best Quality (pro res), that would give you an Mp4 file. If it still doesn't play sound, try uploading it to You Tube and see what their converters do with it.

If you have iMovie 9 on your computer, try importing into that version.

I realize that this is a little like shooting in the dark, but since nothing else seems to be working, it can't hurt.

-- Rich

Just a thought

This camera worked in previous versions of iMovie.

Have you any .dv files from previous imports that you can import into your 10.1.8 version

to see if the audio is carried over.

I spent about an hour on the phone with support and got nowhere. I google a little while longer and found the iMovie 9.09 work around, which seems to be working. This guy's tutorial is what I used iMovie 2018 - Full Tutorial for Beginners - 16 MINUTES! [+General Overview] - YouTube

Looks as though High Sierra has broken the ability to import DV into iMovie (10), QTP and QT 7 Pro.

Converting to Mp4/AAC, as Rich suggested , might be the solution.

I had the same problem. I revealed the captured footage in finder, and then copied it to iMovie 10 and the quality came back. I only lost quality when exporting through iMovie 9.

I'm having the same problem on Sierra 10.12.6. I've tried iMovie 10.1.8 and LifeFlix DV Importer 2.5.4 (and the Lite version). I've tried 2 different macs (MBP mid2010, MBP 2012), 3 different cables (using macs with firewire ports) and 2 different camcorders (Canon ZR45 and Canon ZR950). I've also tried using QT record video. iMovie and LifeFlix import with no errors but the clips have no audio, even after exporting from iMovie (using Best/ProRes quality). The QT results are also the same: audio meters show input corresponding to the video I'm importing and yet no audio after importing. This was working at some point since I have about 10 of my tapes imported and converted and audio is working on all of those.

I've checked the ~/Library/PreferencePanes dir and it's empty. ~/Library/QuickTime does not exist and /Libary/QuickTime contains:

# ls -l /Library/QuickTime

total 0

drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jul 30 2016 AppleIntermediateCodec.component

drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jul 30 2016 AppleMPEG2Codec.component

I've also tried this on an iMac (2007, firewire 400 port) with iMovie ('08 - 7.1.4) and it imports with audio, but the video quality is dramatically worse.

@Apple: Help.

Try what thesurreyfriends says and see if that works.

I have found in the context of other problems that converting to Mp4/AAC often resolves the issue, so that might work here.

-- Rich

I'm having the same issue. Importing from an old Canon camcorder into iMovie. Getting an image, but no audio. Does anyone know if this issue exists in FCP? I'm also on High Sierra 10.13.2

That's interesting. The video contains AAC, an iMovie compatible audio codec, but there is no sound when played in iMovie even when re-converted to Mp4/AAC, also iMovie compatible. You might be right that this is something that Apple will need to address.

-- Rich

New development...I've been sifting through old tapes all day, trying to import each one. Out of a dozen tapes, 1 tape actually worked, and I captured video and audio for it through FCPX. I have no idea what the difference is, and why it's just this single DV tape. I've attached screenshots of the file properties for some of the media from FCP. One is a file that didn't capture audio, and the other does have audio. They look identical though...

This might be a media related problem. Is it possible that the song that won't play is DRM protected, whereas the song that will play is DRM free? DRM protected songs will download into iMovie but they won't display waveforms and they won't play. iTunes songs from 2009 and earlier were DRM protected. iTunes abandoned DRM protection after that date.

-- Rich