Importing video from Optura 300 using iMovie does not work

malexgreen

malexgreen

Contributor and PB User
I bought a Canon Optura 300 miniDV camcorder about 4 days ago. I've been struggling importing the video I either record to the tape or directly import with iMovie ver 3.0.3. Here are the iMovie preferences I use to import the video:

[x] Play sound when export completed
[x] Use short time codes
[ ] Show locked audio...
New projects are [x] NTSC
[ ] PAL

Import: New clips go to [x] Clips Pane
[ ] Movie Timeline
[x] Automatically start new clip at scene break

Advanced: [x] Extract audio paste over
[x] Filter audio from camera
[ ] Play video through camera

Here are the camera settings
D. ZOOM ... OFF
IMAGE S. (("Hand"))...ON
WHITE BAL...AUTO
AF AST LAMP...AUTO
16:9...OFF
PHOTO REC...TAPE[0-0]

VCR SET UP
REC MODE...SP
AV/PHONES...AV

The camcorder I have is a NTSC format camera. I bought my camera and powerbook here in the US, and I live in the US. I'm using a belkin 4-to-6 pin firewire cable (6ft long).

Whenever I try to import the picture the video drops frames and iMovie fails to automatically start a new clip at scene break. I've tried the following things to help iMovie:

used Cache Out X to clean out the cache
not used a background image or automatic background change
I don't run any other application except iMovie when performing download
Set Energy Saver to run the CPU at full speed.

I own a Ti Powerbook with 512MB of RAM, 1GHz G4 CPU, I have 18GB of disk space. I am running Panther 10.3.2, and I am using FileVault. Incidentially I took the camer into an Apple Store, and had them import video on an iMac with no problem. Is there anything wrong with what I did above? What should I do next. I'm thinking about taking both the camera and the notebook into the movie store and have them help me, since I have Apple Care, as it appears to me to be a power book issue since the video imported just fine on another computer.

 
Please don't take this as a really dumb comment, but have you tried a different firewire cable to help troubleshoot this? It looks like everything else is just fine.
 
Well, it could be that FileVault is the culprit here -- since iMovie captures clips to your "Movies" folder in your home folder, and since that folder is encrypted and any data written to it must be encrypted on-the-fly, that could be the source of the import failings.

Try turning off FileVault, or if you don't wanna do that, create a new user that does NOT use FileVault and try capturing again. Video capturing is extremely disk intensive, and if there's the slightest bit of slowdown (like due to auto-encrypting) then that could cause the dropped frames and whatnot.
 
Ooooh - that is a really sharp idea Eldiablo! I bet you are right. I'm so glad there are smart people like you on this forum to help people troubleshoot! If this is the problem, I guess it is something Apple let slip through the cracks a little bit.
 
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