Canon FS100 Camcorder and Mac OS X?

Question

I'm thinking of buying the Canon FS100 Camcorder and i've heard it won't plug and play with my Apple MacBook Pro. I want to do some basic editing with iMovie. I wondered if anyone had any ideas how to get round this or have any suggestions for alternative camcorder which is Mac friendly.

Answer 1

The FS100 will definitely work with the FS100. I know - I've used it with my iMac running iMovie 08 on OSX 10.5 Leopard. You must bear in mind that it generates MPEG-2 clips, which are very similar to those you'll find on DVD discs, and that can be a problem for some Mac versions. However, any Mac that's using an Intel processor will be fine, so by connecting with USB 2.0 you'll be able to import your clips using the appropriate menu option (Import From Camera) in iMovie.

SimplyDV is a good UK site for this stuff.

Answer 2

Pretty much any video camera will work with any computer - you just need the right tools.

In the case of the Canon FS100 - a standard definition, flash memory based camcorder - you will need to download, install and use StreamClip

http://www.apple.com/search/downloads/?q...

to convert the very highly compressed MPEG2 files the FS100 stores to memory before iMovieHD can do anything with them. Please keep in mind that while the video quality is OK, it is not as good as miniDV tape. DV (and HDV) compress a lot less than hard disk drive (HDD), and flash memory based camcorders (and DVD based camcorders should never be on anyone's short list - they compress the most).

The FS100 does have a mic, jack, though... so that is good. Most camcorders in this range do not.

You may find this area useful

http://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa...