Break a Leg

I recently purchased a MacBook Pro with hopes of being able to edit some short films I have been working on. To my dismay, my macbook doesn't seem to like my Sony DCR-SR40 very much. I guess they aren't compatible. First off, the software it came with isn't even recognized by my mac. Second, when I try to take the videos off manually, they can't be read. I was wondering if anyone knew a software I could download to fix this problem.

I'll tell Justin and Dashiell to see if they know something.

SEE? that's why I use PCs! Because... they.. break all the time...

Stupid PCs.

Alright, thanks!
Yeah, I'm used to PC, but supposedly Macs are all-powerful and amazing when it comes to video editing...not that I would know...sigh.

Hey Christian,
First off, Macs ARE all powerful and amazing.
Second, can you tell me what kind of file the videos are when the come off your camera? I'm guessing this camera record straight to internal hard drive or card right? And you just offloading them to the computer.

Yes, they record straight to a hard drive, and I try to offload them with a USB (cause that's all it has).
The files are MPG or MPEG.

Not to sound rude...or desparate, but is there no hope? :/

Justin's terrible at responding. Let me yell at him to get back here!

It's all cool!
Sorry for sounding like an impatient little kid, but it's just that I am going to start filming friday.
I actually have access to one of those semi-pro Canon's, but I not until September, and I'm kind of on a tight schedule.

No worries! It's why we're here!

Heh, yeah, Yuri's right, I usually am terrible at responding. Nothing personal, it usually takes me about a week to even respond to him, and even when I do, I forgot why he was calling me in the first place.
But anywho, let's get to the bottom of this.
So I think I have your plan of attack.
First, go to this site:
http://www.squared5.com/
•Download the Mac version.
•Once you open the program, you will see a gray window with what looks like the "5 dots" side of a dice.
•Hook your camera up to your computer so that it shows up in your finder as a hard drive. Now this is a bit time consuming, but it should work - drag a movie file (i think there are 2 files with same name next to each other, the movie file is the one that is the bigger file size - in the "megabites") Drag one of those files into MPEG Streamclip.
•Now while in the MPEG Streamclip program, go to FILE - EXPORT TO QUICKTIME...
• At the top of the next page, set "Compression to "Apple DV/DVCPRO - NTSC
• Set Quality to High
•And in the middle/right portion of the screen, uncheck "Interlaced Scaling" and check "Deinterlace Video"
• Finally, hit "Make Movie"!

Right now I think you need to do that for every clip you have - I know, it's a pain in the ass.
I'll keep looking to see if you can do a type of batch export, but for now that should get you going.
Oh and also, I didn't see an area where to specify where the new video file gets saved, but for me, it ends up on the Desktop.

Let me know if that works.
Good luck!

If you have any other questions, feel free to hit me up on my email or instant message

justinmarkmorrison@gmail.com

AIM: jus10m82

Alright so good news.
It looks like you can convert ALL your clips in one go.
In MPEG Streamclip, click on "List" at the top of the page, and then choose "Batch List"
Then just go into your Finder window that shows all your video clips on your camera and drag them into the Batch List Window.
Hit "Go"
Then choose "Export to Quicktime"
Tell it where you want to save the files.
And then adjust the export setting to the specifications that I talked about in the last post.

There you go!
Biggety, Bam!

Thanks so much for all of the help!
Hopefully it works! If I have any questions I'll be sure to hit you up. Thanks again!

It says I have to get an MPEG-2 Playback component that I can purchase from Apple for around $20. Is there a way I can get it without paying, or should I just buy it?

ahhh, i see
By chance are you running Quicktime, or Quicktime Pro?

if you have instant messenger, hit me up with that right now

jus10m82

Hey! Just so you know, it works now!
The only thing that I had to do was download a QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback thing for the mac for $20, and then follow your instructions, and it worked! Woot woot!