3 inch DVD (8cm) and IMAC

[nic2k4]

Hi,
I have a friend who has an IMAC and a Sony DVD camcorder with no firewire or USB port. He wants to know how to import his videos. I thought of using a 3in to 5in adapter ring and was wondering if anyone had tried that. He spoke with sales people at the Apple Store and an Apple repair shop and nobody has an anwser.

[gastorgrab]

Slot Drive?

Don't do it!
.

[tomlee59]

Never, ever do this. Modern drives can spin discs so fast that any imbalance in the mechanicals produces serious problems. Adapter rings are not precision pieces of equipment. The last thing you need is for the thing to shred itself inside the drive.

[dnix71]

You mean the camera has no ports? All iMacs have usb, some FW and usb. Get an external usb or fw drive and read the Sony minidisc from there. You shouldn't need the ring adapter. My Pioneer 107 has a drive tray with holes and an indent just for mini-discs.

[rumplestiltskin]

You may have problems even if you use an external DVD drive for the 3" disc. IIRC, that format is not readable on the Mac.

[AntnyMD]

Macs used to be 3" disc-friendly but no more. The only solution is an external DVD drive. Since the video isnt copy protected, you should be able to copy the files from the Sony disc with Finder. From there, you'll have to find software that read the video and convert it for editing in Final Cut Pro/Express/iMovie.

[rumplestiltskin]

The Sont camcorder used to use a format that wasn't readable in a Mac. I haven't heard or read whether this has been rectified (by Sony or, more likely, by Apple). This is unrelated to the diameter of the disc.

[nic2k4]

Thanks for the replies. Ditch the ring, ok. We'll look for an external DVD, but this thing about Apple not reading Sony discs is bad news. I have no doubt about it, I had a field day reading his discs in my PC. Some needed the IFOs fixed with IFOedit, with others I created new IFOs from the VOBs. I noticed the troublesome IFOs had hundreds of entries in the chapter list, I thaught there was supposed to be a limit of around 100.