iMovie imports as 0.1s clips

[Toetagger]

We just got a tape from a service done when our Pastor was a guest speaker and we imported it. For the first part of the service it imports fine but about 1/4 of the way through we start seeing little 0.1s clips, then at about halfway through we get continuous 0.1s clips that we have to group them to even pull them up to edit. The worst part is there is no audio and they play in accelerated speed. The tape is a Sony miniDV. Any tips?

[zactommo]

Sounds like there are timecode breaks and tape read error when you are capturing the tape.

If you've got a MINI-DV head cleaning tape then run in through the camera and try again, if not, then try the tape in a different camera. If the fault is with the camera reading the tape, then using another camera with good heads will fix this, if the tape is faulty, then your out of luck?

Was it a new tape, or has it been used before? Has the tape been used it different cameras?

[Toetagger]

It was filmed with a canon camera and we are importing via a Sony camera. Sadly we don't have another camera or a cleaning tape. Does iMovie have an option to not ignore frame errors during import, I know final cut can so was curious.

[zactommo]

Originally Posted by Toetagger

It was filmed with a canon camera and we are importing via a Sony camera. Sadly we don't have another camera or a cleaning tape. Does iMovie have an option to not ignore frame errors during import, I know final cut can so was curious.

Have you tried capturing with the canon camera?

I don't think you can ignore timecode in iMovie. Its one of those features that apple wants you to pay extra to have. Ang ignoring the time code probably won't fix the audio problem

Another thing you could try, if the sony camera has AV inputs, is plugging the two cameras together, and playing back the tape from the canon camera while capturing with the sony via the AV in.

[Toetagger]

We can't use the cannon camera for one little reason, it's in California and we are in Tennessee. It was shot while our pastor was doing some special services over there. We got our video done and all but anything else I can try just in case this happens again.

If we were able to capture and ignore timecode and/or ingnore frame errors in theory it should import just like we see on the camera playback correct? I believe that even if it had an error in either of those two and just kept going the audio would at least record but might be off some but we can fix that. Even in iMovie we could export as an AIFF then reimport. Does my logic sound correct? We may have the option to us final cut to import on another machine.