My macbook does not notice that I plug in my canon video camera. What do I do?

Question

It may be because I have not downloaded the software for the videocamera, but my mac comes with imovie already installed and I'm wondering if I can get around downloading the new software.

Answer 1

imovie should work, If you have a mini dv (cassette) camcorder….

Your dv camcorder needs a firewire connection (ieee 1394) in order to download video, your PC probably did not come with a firewire port, so you will have to buy one and install it, since most computers (except possibly brand new) don't come with a firewire port, your camcorder did not come with a firewire cord so you have to purchase a cord too. Your camcorder did come with a USB cord and that is used for downloading stills from your camcorder. Make sure your camera is in playback mode.

The fine print in your manual makes reference to firewire (ieee 1394) connection.

Answer 2

What kind of camera do you have? If you have a miniDV tape camera, then you need to connect it to your laptop using firewire and make sure your camera is on and in VCR/Playback mode. If you have flash or hard drive based cameras, you need to connect using USB. iMovie will only detect and capture video from miniDV cameras. If you have a flash or HDD camera you can plug it in via USB and it should mount on the Desktop as a drive. Then in iMovie go to File and import the video clips from the drive. Hope this helps!