Hi,

I am having problems capturing video from mini DV tapes to my mac with iMovie.

I actually took the footage with a Sony DCR-TRV900E. Originally I was trying to capture the footage from the tapes using windows movie maker on my PC. However, I noticed that my 38:05 of footage on the camera ended up as a 35:35 file on the computer. (I was also having constant problems with the camera intermittently disconnecting). I then tried to capture in on a Mac using iMovie but I had the same problem with jerky and skipping bits of video and audio.

I just bought a new Sony DCR-HC52E and am again trying to capture the footage on a Mac with iMovie. Once again, it is skipping. The tape plays back fine on the camera but when I import the footage to my Mac I am having the same problems. eg.for the first bit: 1:00:15 on the camera, i only end up with 0:56:00 of sometimes jerky footage on the computer.

Does anyone have any ideas what could be wrong and how i might fix it?

Thanks

Is there any bad bits on the tape ? dirty spots etc ?

Its just that on DVD recorders etc when your recording it will 'Pause for suitable picture' if it doesnt think the picture its getting is good enough

maybe this is the same with your importing ? if you get a bit where its a dirty tape, the timcode will be off, and it may stop the import for a few seconds?

just a thought, never come accross this problem so i dont know how to help more.

It's a fairly common problem when disc space is getting low, or the disc hasn't been maintained in any way. I've never used Mac (ever) but a defrag of the disc probably wouldn't go amiss, or better yet if you're running low on space, but a cheap external hard drive to capture to.

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