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Capturing Video from a Digital Camcorder to iMovie

Start iMovie.

When you open up iMovie, either the last project that was worked on will open, or you will see a menu with the option to begin a new project. If you see the menu, choose “new project” and the save dialog box will appear (see below). If a previous project opens, continue to step two.

Start a new project and save it.

The last project worked on opens for convenience purposes. If you want to begin a new project use the following steps:

  1. Go to the File menu, choose New Project.
  2. In the Save As dialog box, give your project a name.
  3. Save your file in the Save here (external drive) folder on the Desktop. To do this, slide the horizontal scroll bar all the way to the left. Click once on Save here (external drive) will now be an option. When in the Save here directory choose New Folder and name it after your username. Click in the folder you just created and then click Save.

Import the footage you would like to use in your iMovie project.

Make sure the function switch is moved to the left towards the picture of the camera (see next page.)

Because the video is already in a digitized format, you do not have to go through the digital
converter. The camcorder should come with firewire cable that you can plug directly into the back
of the computer.

  1. Press Play on the camcorder. If your footage does not begin playing in the display screen, click the play button in iMovie (see next page.) The play button located in iMovie is the equivalent to the on/off switch for a TV. It will not actually start playing the DVD itself. If the footage still does not display on the screen, consult a FITS staff member for assistance.
  2. When you have reached the section you wish to capture, click Import to start recording into iMovie (see next page.) The current clip will appear to the right of the display screen. Click Import again to stop recording. It is best to capture a more footage before and after the footage you would like to use, in order to ensure that you do not miss anything. You can always crop out extra footage later.
  3. Repeat for each section of footage you would like to capture.