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How can I upload movies from my Sony Handycam to my NEW iMac? - Amy 31 I have the Sony DCR-CH20-NTSC Handycam, and I just bought an iMac. How can I use iMovie on my Mac and my Sony camcorder? Nothing happens when I plug in and I don't have my Picture Package software, (lost it) but in researching it, it seems it was only good for Windows anyway. HELP! Right answer earns a brownie point in my book...:)

Best Answer: If you have a new iMac, I can assume that you have iLife 08. '08 is a little different from '06 but hte basics are the same. There is no converting to be done. No third party software required. You need to get a firewire cable if you don't already have one. You can get it at Circuit City or Best Buy or even Wal-Mart. The small end of the cable goes into the DV port of your camcorder. Turn the camcorder on and make sure that it is set to playback and not record. The big end of your cable goes into the iMac. With the camera on, start up iMovie. If it is not on your dock (the pop up bar with your program shortcuts) then you can find in your applications folder. (Finder>Applications>iMovie). iMovie should recognize your camcorder and default to the capture mode. On iMovie '06 there is a set of small icons with a switch between them. One is a little camera and the other is a pair of scissors. The camera is for capturing video and the scissors puts it into editing mode. Once you are in capture mode, use iMovie to play your video and tap the space bar to toggle between capture and viewing. Tap it once and you are capturing. Tap it again and it just plays. Once you have all of you video captured, you can edit it and share it in just about any format. iPod, you tube, DVD, Quicktime or whatever. Just ignore the Sony software. Hope this helps. - Jim

Your right, you don't need to install the Sony software. What you do need is a 4 - 6 pin firewire aka iLink or IEEE1394 cable to transfer the footage to iMovie HD '08. With previous versions of iMovie you need 3rd party software to convert the video to a format that iMovie supports. - Elbert

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