canopus ADVC-55 conversion analog to digital on MacPro

[morgankia]

Hi, I just bought the Canopus ADVC-55 analog to digital converter. My little six yr old daughter was killed last year and I have some very precious sony mini DVD hanycam video of my girl that I want to store electronically on my Macbook Pro. I have run the audo/video cable from my handycam to the Canopus converter box and have run the firewire cable into my mac. I then opened imovie and the ADVC-55 interface opened in imovie. When I start playing the video footage on my camcorder I cannot see the video in imovie and therefore cannot copy/record into my laptop. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong and/or need to do differently. Thank you Morgan.

[CogoSWSDS]

If it is a Mini DVD camcorder as you say, you don't need the canopus at all.

Does the DVD play on a stand-alone player, or only on the camcorder? If it plays only on the camcorder, put the disk in the camcorder and finalize it (I don't have a DVD camcorder, mine is D8 tape, so I do not know how to finalize it on your camcorder). Then put it in your computer and use a DVD ripper to copy it to your hard drive (I come from a Windoze background, so I do not know what DVD ripping software will run on a mac). Done, with no need for the canopus.

If your DVD plays on a stand-alone player, then put the DVD in your mac and run a mac-based DVD ripper to copy it to your hard drive. Done, with no need for the canopus.

Each time you convert a video, you lose a little bit of quality. You will get a better quality video on your computer by avoiding the conversion from MPEG2 to DV. By going through the canopus, you will be converting from MPEG2 to DV. A DVD ripper does not do this conversion.

Unfortunately, I am a Windoze user and not a mac user, however the information I've given above is video information and not based on what kind of computer you have. I hope I have helped you with your project.

CogoSWSDS

[terryj]

Cogo is right on the mark.
If you finalize the DVD in the Sony Handycam,
you can then insert the finalized
DVD into your Mac, and then using MpegStreamclip for the mac
(with the QT Mpeg-2 optional codec purchased and installed)
you can then simply open the footage STRAIGHT OFF THE DVD
and save it to your Laptop in .mov, .avi, or .mp4 format.
(or just simply extract the footage from the DVD into DV Stream format to use in iMovie, if you want to make a "best clips" project.)

[morgankia]

Thank you so much for your responses. I was able to finalize my mini DVD and just purchased QT MPEG-2.