OK, so…

More than a year ago, my dad got us a video camera for Christmas.  I’m pretty sure he found it appalling that we had been parents for a whopping 4 months and had NO VIDEO CAMERA.  I’m not really a video nut, but fine.  It was a great gift, and a great idea.  Good to be able to record movement and sound for posterity, since these finer details fade so quickly from memory.

The trouble is this: I have a Mac. I’m a Mac person, all the way.  I had already been researching video cameras before one was gifted to me, and I knew that there are compatibility issues out there.  Mostly because it seems every brand of video camera has it’s own, weird, proprietary file formatting. And the software they include with the camera? Frequently Windows-only.  My dad did not know this, so did not do any of that kind of research when purchasing (and opening, charging, and filming with) the new camera.

For a while, though, my Sony HDR-SR5 seemed to begrudgingly get along with iMovie ’08.  (Not at all with the previous iMovie HD, don’t even get me started on how that ended in me getting a new computer.)  It would take about 5-10 minutes for it to recognize the camera and the video clips, and just as long to import them, but eventually it worked.

Then, I don’t know.  Maybe the camera talked trash about iMovie’s girlfriend, or iMovie wouldn’t sit with the camera at lunchtime.  Whatever their falling-out, they stopped getting along.  iMovie would go so far as to recognize the camera and its contents, but would not import them. Hugely frustrating and time-consuming, all for nothing.  And, so, the video camera sits idly on my desk.

But, seriously, my kids are only 18 months old once. I want to capture their vocabulary, complete with funny pronunciations. I want the visual of them chasing each other around, yelling “beep beep!”  There are some things blogs and DSLRs alone cannot do.  Video is the way to go.

I decided to try M’s Windows machine, and we dutifully installed the software that comes with the camera.  Wohoo, the video gets imported and will play with the special Sony player.  Oh look, you can export it as an MPEG-2 file! I’ve heard of that!  I bet it will work.  We export it, and then my computer talks to his computer, we get the file onto my very own hard drive. Wohoo!

Except that Quicktime, iTunes, iMovie, and all other applications on my computer will not play MPEG-2.  Apparently, also a proprietary file format. ARGH!!!  M does some magic with the Google, finds out I can download a free program that switches video file formats.  And THEN pay $20 for a Quicktime MPEG-2 add-on from the Apple Store.  And then, it will be happy and work with iMovie.  And so it was.  Whew.

So now, if I take any video of my kids, I have to do the following:

1. Import video to M’s computer
2. Export each video clip to an MPEG-2 format
3. Connect my computer to his, transfer file to my hard drive
4. Open file with “MPEG Streamclip” program.
5. Export file as MPEG-4 or other friendly format
6. Import file into iMovie library

And after all of THAT is done?  Then I can start actually editing (something I have no feel for), and eventually post to YouTube or the like and then post it on my blog.

All I’m saying is this: if you see video of my kids at any point… know that it probably took many hours to get there.  Good lord.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear recommendations for a not-ridiculously-expensive camcorder that works with iMovie.  Anything you guys love? I’ve heard people dig the Flip, any opinions?