[JedahZero]

iMovie doesn't support .mpg from a simple digital camera. Any advice as to where I can find software (free hopefully) that will convert my .mpg to .mov/.dv?
Thanks, JZ

[ftaok]

Starting with iMovie 3, you can just drag and drop mpg's into iMovie. The problem is that if you have a muxed mpg file (which you probably do), you'll lose the sound on the import.
You'll need to demux the file, convert the sound to aiff, then recombine the files.
Here's what you need.
1. MoreMissingTools
2. iTunes
3. Quicktime Pro ($30)
Do a search on "demux mpg" and you'll find instructions on how to do this.

[albloom]

I've been trying to convert MPEGs from Leslye's Sony digicam
without success for some time. I'm grateful for your expertise.
One key that I'd missed was converting the MPEG audio to AIFF
before recombining in QT Pro. Works lots better that way.
Thanks for the insight.
But I still beat my head against the process for a couple hours
this morning. Could I perhaps pick your brain further? I downloaded
MMT, launched it, got a cute window with lots of labelled boxes,
none of which actually does anything. I thought it might be because
I had not installed XCode Tools from the Panther install set. OK,
did that. No luck. What magic must be performed to get MMT to work?
No biggie. BBDemux worked.
From BBDemux, I had .M1V (video) and .M1A (audio) MPEG files. I
could find nothing but SoundApp (in Classic) to convert the M1A
file to AIFF. Tried a bunch of stuff that I had found on
Versiontracker (aacconverter, mcast mp3 converter, mp3-to-aiff,
mpeg streamclip) and the best I got was an error message. iTunes
4.6 didn't offer a way to convert the M1A file that I could see.
No biggie. SoundApp worked.
Merging the files in QT Pro was straightforward after that.
But I am curious as to what I did wrong with MMT and what OSX
native apps can convert the MPEG sound to AIFF.
All help greatly appreciated.

[ftaok]

I've never had luck with using bbDemux. The resultant audio file was not covnertible using iTunes. And since I don't have Classic on my machine, I never used SoundApp.
MMT (that's MoreMissingTools, not MissingMpegTools) produced an audio file that worked with iTunes. As for needing to install X-Code or anything, that's not necessary. When you launch MMT, you get that box with a bunch of boxes that you describe. One of the buttons is for demuxing mpg files. Just click it and you'll be asked which file you want to demux. A Terminal window opens up and in seconds, you have two new files.
I don't know why this doesn't work for you. But I do know that MMT does work.

[albloom]

In reply to:

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I've never had luck with using bbDemux.

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And I only had luck once today. The second file I tried it on, the
fool thing was unable to read it. Then I found MPEG2 Works. Did
a very nice job demuxing the file. Ten bucks shareware.

In reply to:

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I do know that MMT does work.

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I'm sure it does, but that demux button just giggled at me.
Then I double-clicked the MP2 (audio) output, which launched
iTunes. Advanced-menu/Convert-to-AAC got a second tune, which I
dragged to the desktop as an M4A file (then deleted both versions in
iTunes).
At that point, QT Pro 6 happily combined the MPEG video and
the AAC (m4a) file into a MOV. No need to convert AAC to AIFF.
Or is AAC the same as AIFF? I'm dumb about such.
At any rate, Goodwife Bloom is now a happy camper. She can take
the MPEG movies from her Sony camera and pope them into QTPro,
with sound, to edit as she pleases.
Thanks again for the pointers. Got me moving.

[Nap]

Try Audacity, a freeware audio utility that will import the mpeg sound stream and can be set to export to either Wave or AIFF. Ok, I have only used the OS 9 version of Audacity but I would assume that the OS X version would also do the conversion from mpeg audio to AIFF or Wave.