JVC Everio to Mac?

Your camera creates MOD files.
They are really MPEG-2 formats and are not natively supported in iMovie.
There are third party software tools that can convert them into DV Stream (.dv) that can be used in iMovie and you should start with a search of these Discussions pages to learn more.

Jeni,

Mpeg Streamclip (free)
http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html

PLUS

The QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component ($20)
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/

Installing these apps should do the trick. Mpeg streamclip needs the MPEG-2 Playback Component installed on the system to convert the mod/mpeg2 files to the DV format for iMovie.

To convert my Everio files I use the MPEG Streamclip with MPEG-2 playback component mentioned above, with pretty good results. Results are not perfect, but that's prob'ly an issue with my camera not recording perfect MPEG-2 encodings, I'm guessing.

Note that you can connect your cam directly to the Mac and it appears as a disk from which Streamclip can open files directly. All that iMovie documentation on importing from video cameras does not apply to Everio cameras!

In Streamclip, open a small clip, just to enable the "File -> Export to Quicktime" menu entry. Use the batch list if you have quite a few clips to convert. I use these options if the target is to burn to DVD:

- Compression: Apple MPEG4 Compressor
- Quality: 100%
- Frame Rate: 29.97
- Frame Size: 720x480 (DV-NTSC)
- Selected Frame Blending, Better Downscaling, and Deinterlace Video

You might want to save these choices after you set them, using the exporter's "Presets" button.

This took my 2Ghz Intel Mac about hours to convert 4 hours of video, and it didn't quite work for the 4Gb mpeg-2 files, resulting in "file write" errors being reported from Streamclip. I'm going to try to clip these in streamclip before conversion.

-g

The Apple MPEG-2 Playback Component (and QuickTime) have a 4GB file size limit for viewing or converting via third party software.
But thanks for your explanation and additions to this question.

jeni,

I think the ideal process would be to copy/drag&drop the xxx.mod files to your desktop/folder/or whatever. After the file(s) are copied to the computer bring them into Mpeg Streamclip and convert/export to DV format for editing in iMovie.

Maybe others can help with specific settings?

I really don't see the advantage of going from mod(mpeg2) to mp4 back to mpeg2, versus mod(mpeg2) to DV format (whether for editing or creating DVD).

Maybe others have thoughts/comments on the pros & cons regarding this issue

In any case I won't convert to mp4 unless it was specically for iTunes/iPod, internet, etc. video.

.. I use these options if the target is to burn to DVD:
- Compression: Apple MPEG4 Compressor..

means:
mp2 (=lossy codec) from rec-device >> Streamclip converts into mp4 (=lossy codec) >> iDVD converts to mp2 (=lossy codec...) again...

I would use a less lossy 'inbetween' codec, as 'dv' or the widely underestimated Apple Intermediate Codec ...

I was having the same trouble. The everio cam came with a disk. Download it to the mac and it will convert the video to dv format. I am still playing with it. so I don't have all the answers yet.

i'm also using a jvc everio and trying to burn a dvd of all my movies from a recent vacation...whne using capty and converting to DV the files become huge (a 49 mb movie clip becomes 143 mb)
before reading around here i was converting them to quicktime which was making them slightly smaller but i'm worried about losing tons of quality.
would it be better to just leave them large and burn them to several dvds? i'd like to make them all on one dvd if possible.

i also have a pc, would it be easier to edit these files using that instead?