Issue importing footage in iMovie

[SWChillpics]

I'm trying to import footage into iMovie, but after 15 minutes of material, it stops importing.

I'm using a Sony Mini DV (tape deck) to import footage from a football (soccer) game onto a MacBook Pro running iMovie (10.1.14).

The footage on the tape is 50 mins long, but it will only import the first 15 mins in iMovie. The tape carries on playing to the end, but in the project window there is only one 15 minute clip.

I've looked in iMovie preferences, but there does not seem to be any controls to change this.

Previously (some years back), using a 2008 MacBook and iMovie HD, this was never an issue.

Any suggestions/help gratefully received.

 

[MightyGem]

There could be a couple of issues. The fact that you are using a Sony tape deck could be one. Back when miniDV was the common media for camcorders, trying to import from a Sony camcorder often caused problems in getting iMovie to "see" the camcorder. Also the fact that you are not using the camcorder that recorded the video to import also caused problems in the past.

Apart from that, I think it's just iMovie moving away from miniDV. I used it for many years and iMovie6HD was ideal for it, splitting the import into separate clips depending on the start/stop filming information from the camcorder. With iMovie 11(v9), this became erratic, giving me clips of less than a second at time.

With iMovie 10, importing just became more and more problematic taking 2 or 3 attempts to import and sometimes failing completely.

That prompted me to move onto AVCHD a couple of years ago.

Hope that helps.