wife just bought me this great camcorder, im wondering if i will be able to use Imovie or Idvd on my Mac. Imovie doesnt seem to recognize my camera, and if i copy the video TS folder over to Imovie, it doesnt appear to have any sound. Brand new to this video stuff, so any help would be appreciated. Would love to be able to manipulate these movies.

regards

I just received on today as a gift. I have two Macs at home.

According to the Sony eSupport site we are not supported customers. I'm sure you spent a lot of money on your new camera as did my parents who gave me one. The Sony website flat out states that Apple Macintosh computers are not supported.

I tried different types of disks in conjuction with the USB cable and in all combinations the Mac wouldn't recognize the camera as a valid drive. iMovie will also not recognize it because it does not use a Firewire (iEEE 1394/ iLink) cable. Apple has nothing on its site as I could find to support the camera.

There are only two solutions I can think of: One, try using a DVD ripping software to capture the audio and video from a finalized DVD-R disk burnt from the camera. There are a couple different shareware software programs that do this, albeit I have not found one that works well. Two, sell the camera on eBay and buy a camera that has a Firewire port.

Please post any solutions you come up with. I'm going to look for a few more hours on line and then try to exchange the camera tomorrow for a different model (and company) that is more Mac friendly.

Good Luck!

Was able to find a program called "Drop DV" which will convert the video TS-folder to an Imovie compatible .DV format, which Imovie will recognize, i also read somewhere of dragging the mpeg on the disc BEFORE finalizing, then convert, apparently the finalizing process converts the mpeg to a DVD video Ts-folder. Havent really tried the last option, cause the wife and kids have me running on all cylinders lately. let me know if anything works, cause i love this camera )

Just found an excellent program that got rave reviews in Mac world...and works excellently! its DVDxDV...creates a quictime movie for final cut and I movie with little to NO quality loss. download the demo and tell me what you think. Im amazed!

I'll try that DVDxDV program. I think I read the review a few weeks/months back. My only other problem is I only have a slot loading DVD drive on my PowerBook. I may have to bite-the-bullet and get a tray load DVD for my desktop (It's an older model with only a CD-R drive).
Am I assuming right that you are putting the 8cm DVD disks in your destop and then using DVDxDV to get the footage to iMovie? Or, did you find some way to use the Sony supplied USB cable to read the disks directly from the camera?

The only other solution I could think of was installing VirtualPC and try running the Sony supplied software. I don't have VPC right now but I'm considering it.

I'm thinking we're the pioneers with this camera since its pretty new! I've decided to keep it because of the exceptional quality of the camera itself and if all else fails I'll use it stand-alone rather than try to edit the movies on my Mac. I'm really just shooting quick vids of my new kid to send to the grandparents!

r/ GDM

I am using my tray loading dvd burner to introduce the movie to dvdxdv....actually i found it faster to drag the Video TS-Folder onto my drive, then use DVDxDV. much faster than cd-reader speeds. have you tried the demo? really nice and crisp images, am very happy with the program.

I just received my new OWC (www.macsales.com) external DVD burner yesterday. I went with a Pioneer 109 mechanism which provides support for all DVD formats including dual layer (don't really know If I'll use that but may be nice to have).

I tested out DVDxDV Pro (1.051) and the cheaper (plain DVDxDV 1.095) version. I didn't see any visible difference. As for audio, looks like to get 5.1 (AC-3) pass through I'd have to buy the Pro version but that's not a priority for me. For what I want to do the $25 dollar version of the software seems a better buy than the $80 version. Which did you go with?

I also tried a few other programs including one called "Handbrake" (found on www.macupdate.com) it rips and encodes into MPEG-4. Its a free program which is nice but I wasn't happy with the quality. I may play around with it a little more and see If I get satisfying results. Free is a good price but then again you get what you're paying for!!

I'll post later.

been using "Cinematize" and believe i will stick with it.
excellent quality when "Uncompressed 4:2:2" is selected, it's the one to beat right now....

Hi, so what's the scoop? Can I take my mini DVD...recorded with the Sony 301...put it in the tray of my DVD drive on my mac...and move the files to iMovie for editing? Or do I have to use this DVDxDV software to modify it first? I have put a finalized disk into a machine running Panther and the disk plays on iDVD. Same with Tiger. But, when I put the unfinalized disk in, it says "Blank disk" even though the disk has files on it.

Greetings all,

I'm a complete newbie to digital camcorders and I'm looking at the Sony DCR-DVD403, due to it's high video quality. It's unfortunate that it's incompatable w/ Macs, particularly for use in iChat AV (no firewire?), but I'll deal with it. Here's what may be a stupid question:

My Sony DVD player accomodates full size dvd's simply by dropping them into it's tray. There is nothing that "grabs" the dvd by it's center hole. So how do I go about playing Mini-DVD's? is there some sort of accessory I would need to buy?

If you are talking about the kind of tray that slides out-and-in and you place the DVD on it -- then there should be a miniDVD-sized depression in the center of the tray that just accepts the miniDVD. You just wiggle the miniDVD around a bit to make sure it is in the recessed area, then you hit the open/close button to close the tray.

Thanks; I never noticed that before. (Never had to...)

Ok, I've got the DVD403 and find it very easy to use. But do I really have to see this dialog box everytime I turn it on that says, "Sony Discs Recommended"? Is there a way to shut this warning off? Also, if I hit Record immediately at power on, will this dialog appear in my video on playback?

Anybody at all?

I don't know the answer, but it would only take you 30 seconds with your 403 to find out.