IMovie file Compatibility question?

Question

We have a Sony DCR-SR42 camcorder that has a USB plugin. We would like to import our movies into iMovie however when the camcorder is plugged in iMovie quits. We went to a Apple store and they gave us a site to use to convert files, but we don't know what to convert our files into. They are MPEG files. They come up as Quicktime files but when we try to open them in Quicktime it says that it cannot open them because they are not movie files. We would really like to be able to open our files in iMovie but we cannot figure out how. Any Advice?

Answer 1

also download VLC video player for mac.

that'll play almost all files.

Answer 2

They are MPEG-2 files. You need to spend $20 buying the following QuickTime plugin from Apple:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/

This will do the trick.