You can get your raw footage from a lot of sources, only one of which is a camcorder (do they even make those anymore?). For example, iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches shoot video, as do almost all digital still cameras. Most cameras store your footage as files, but some older cameras store it on tape or even on a DVD.

But no matter the source, any importing you do involves five initial steps:

The following descriptions explain the details of importing from a particular source, picking up from where these five steps leave off.

Apple calls the iPhone the most popular camera on the planet, and, considering how convenient it is to capture those random moments with it, the claim certainly has merit. Whether you’re shooting with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, iMovie can import its footage for you.

Figure 2-1. iMovie’s Import window. Before you import a clip, be sure to choose the right destination event from the “Import to” menu. If you don’t see an event you like, choose New Event to name and create one.

With your iDevice connected and the Import window open, iMovie displays your video clips using sample frames (Figure 2-2), and denotes the length of each clip with a little time indicator in the corner. You can preview a clip by moving your cursor over it without clicking: The viewer window above “plays” your footage as you skim. (See Skim Filmstrips for more on skimming.) You can also play back a clip in full by selecting it and then clicking in the viewer window (the playback button appears only when you mouse over the window).

You can select and import photos, too. To see your source-material options, go to the drop-down menu in the top-right corner of the Import window and choose Videos, Photos, or Photos and Videos. To adjust your preview options, click the filmstrip icon beside the drop-down menu. There, you can change the size of the clips for easier previewing, show the audio waveforms (Remodel Your Workspace) that go along with a clip, or tell iMovie to show or hide clips you’ve already imported.

Figure 2-2. Before you import video from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, iMovie shows you all the clips on the device. Choose the clip(s) you want to import, select a destination event, and then click Import Selected.

Once you’re ready to start importing clips, follow these steps:

Don’t disconnect your iDevice right after you click the Import button—it takes some time to transfer the video files to your Mac. When iMovie finishes importing, it lets you know (Figure 2-3, bottom).

Figure 2-3. Top: As iMovie imports your clips, it displays a progress disc (lower-left corner). Bottom: Once iMovie finishes the import, it lets you know that it’s safe to disconnect your iDevice.

These days, pretty much all digital cameras shoot both photos and video. That means everything from a fancy digital SLR to the humble point-and-shoot can be a video camera. Video quality is another question entirely, because not all cameras are created equal.

Whatever camera you use, you probably connect it to your Mac with a USB cable, which comes with your camcorder (see Figure 2-4). (You can also pop out your camera’s memory card, as described in the next section.)

Your camera may also need to be in a particular setting to talk to your Mac. The wording might vary and some cameras may sense the connection automatically, but every camera or camcorder has a mode for making PC or Mac connections (Figure 2-5).

Once you set up your Mac so it can see your camera, the camera shows up in the Import window’s list of sources. From that point on, importing from your camera is identical to importing from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch—follow steps 1 and 2 in the previous section.

Figure 2-4. Most cameras and camcorders come with a USB cable. The small end plugs into your camcorder (you may have to open some tiny plastic door on the camera to find the jack). The big end plugs into any of your Mac’s USB jacks.

Figure 2-5. Camcorders and cameras generally have a switch or command that lets you connect it to a PC (or, in this case, to a Mac). It might be a dedicated position on the camera’s “mode” dial, as shown here.

Almost every recent Mac model comes with an SD card slot. (An SD card is the little postage-stamp-sized memory card most digital cameras use to store your photos.) Having a slot in your Mac means you can take the SD card out of your camera and plug it right into your computer, saving you the trouble of using a cable to connect.

Importing from an SD card works just like importing from a camera; the card shows up in iMovie the same way a connected camera does. If, instead of that, the card shows up as a drive, nestled in with the hard drives connected to your Mac, you probably don’t actually have any videos or photos on the card.

Browsing and picking individual clips from a camera is a relatively new convenience. Once upon a time, people recorded video onto tapes. The most popular of these was the MiniDV tape, and you may have a drawer full of them. The convenience of flash-based storage like SD cards put DV tapes out to pasture.

Luckily, as historical as this format has become, iMovie can still speak the ancient tape language. You’ll need a few things to get this to work.

The first is a DV-based camera or deck. You may still have your old MiniDV camera around; as long as it still operates, it should work with your Mac. Alternatively, you can use a DV deck, which is a box dedicated to reading DV tapes. Either of these should have a Firewire connection on it, which brings you to the next thing you need.

Because pretty much every DV-tape-based camera and deck uses Firewire to connect to your Mac, you’ll need a Firewire cable. Firewire connections come in two flavors: Firewire 400 and Firewire 800. This latest version of iMovie doesn’t work on Macs with Firewire 400 connections (they’re too old), so if you have a Firewire port on your Mac, it’s probably the 800 variety (Figure 2-6).

The big end of the cable goes into the Firewire jack on the side or back of your Mac; it’s marked by a radioactive-looking symbol. The small end goes into your camera or deck.

If you have a Mac with no Firewire port of any kind, then you’ll need an adapter. Apple sells one for current Macs (those that have Thunderbolt connections) for $30.

You’ll also need to set your camcorder to playback mode, labeled Play, VCR, VTR, or just (Figure 2-7). Once you do that, follow steps 1–4 on From an iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, and then follow the steps outlined next.

Figure 2-6. To connect a DV-tape camera to your Mac, you’ll need a Firewire cable like the one pictured here. It has a Firewire 800 connector on the big end and a 4-pin connector in the little end.

Figure 2-7. Your camcorder’s Play mode should be a fairly prominent knob or menu setting. If you can’t find it, check the manual.

The footage you import shows up in your chosen event. You’ll also notice a handy feature when iMovie finishes importing footage: The program automatically creates an individual filmstrip (clip) for each scene you shot. So an hour’s worth of tape doesn’t wind up as a single, mega-chunk of video—instead, you wind up with 30 or 40 individual clips, just the way you shot them.

That’s because, behind the scenes, iMovie studies the date and time stamp that digital camcorders record on every frame of video. When iMovie detects a break in time, it assumes that you stopped recording, if only for a moment, and therefore considers the next piece of footage a new shot. It turns each new shot into a new clip.

DVD camcorders, like tape-based cameras, are also historic these days, but more like historical oddities. In general, DVD camcorders were a mess. They were fussy, took a long time to “initialize” and “finalize” a blank DVD, each disc didn’t hold very much footage, and the recorded discs had a short lifespan.

This latest version of iMovie recognizes only two DVD camcorder models, the Sony HDR-UX20 and Sony HDR-UX20E. You can import from these two cameras the same way you do for an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch (see From an iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch). Any other DVD-based camera requires a prior version of iMovie.

If you have video clips on your Mac that you want to bring into iMovie for editing, you don’t need a camera or anything. You just need to import the files.

The easiest way to do that is to drag them in from the Finder. Position the iMovie window so you can see your movie files in the Finder, and then drag the files directly onto an event in iMovie’s Event list. iMovie then copies the clips to that event.

Alternatively, you can use the Import window to find and select your clips. In the window, you can see the hard drives connected to your Mac. Select one and you see a file browser just like the one in the Finder, except that it also lists how long your clips are (Figure 2-9). Select one or more clips and click Import Selected to copy them into the chosen event. (You can choose more than one clip by holding down the ⌘ key as you click each one.)

Figure 2-9. You can import files from the Finder, too. Navigate to the folder that holds your video clips, select them, and then click Import Selected.

Every Mac laptop and iMac has a tiny video camera built in, just above the screen. This is your iSight camera, the one you use for things like Facetime chats or PhotoBooth shoots. iMovie can use this camera to capture video live, direct into your chosen event.

Follow steps 1–4 on From an iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, and then click the big, red button to start recording (Figure 2-10). Click it again to stop. You can do this repeatedly for multiple takes; iMovie sticks each recording in the event you chose. Close the Import window when you’re done.

We live in a new age, with digital everything, but millions of precious moments are trapped on VHS, VHS-C, or 8mm cassettes—that is, analog tapes instead of digital.

Figure 2-10. You can record live with an iSight camera. The big red button starts and stops the recording.

These days, people buy only digital camcorders. So how do you import and edit footage you shot before the digital era? Some local businesses might offer a digitizing service, but those cost money. Fortunately, it’s fairly easy (and free) to digitize old footage if you have the right equipment. That equipment consists of a DV-tape camcorder that has analog inputs—in other words, older model video cameras that record to MiniDV tapes and that have red, white, and yellow input jacks (also known as RCA jacks). You’ll also need a device capable of playing your old analog tapes, like a VCR or another old camcorder—and this unit has to have red, white, and yellow output jacks. Finally, you’ll need an RCA cable (the kind that has red, white, and yellow plugs on both ends) to connect the recording and playback devices.

Then:

After you record your old video onto your DV tape, import that tape by following the steps on From a Tape Camcorder or DV Deck. It’s not the most elegant solution to digitizing old videos, but you’ll never have to do it again.