HV40 and transffering (iMovie, QT, FCP)

[harrymotion]

I have a Canon Legria HV40 camcorder. I've many hours of documentary video footage recorded on MiniDV tape.

I am having an issue with transferring the footage to the Apple computer.

Frames are being lost when transferring footage. The frames that are lost are always (as far as I can tell) at the beginning and end of each clip. I'm not sure if clip is the right word here but I'm understanding a 'clip' to be created every time I start and stop recording on the camera.

I tried iMovie '09 (Full, recording to a FireWire HDD) and for every clip iMovie systematically loses the first half second to full second of the beginning and end of each clip as recorded on the camera.

I checked the playback on the camera and all of the information that should be there is there, and plays back on the LCD or on a TV without problem.

I tried QuickTime to see if behaved better; it did. Less seconds and frames were lost, but still some frames were lost.

I tried Final Cut Pro and the situation was better again. However still one or two frames at the beginning of some clips were lost.

Is this all normal? What am I doing wrong? Please help me, I'm desperate and have about 20 hrs of tapes to go through!

Thanks!!!

[KL1054]

it's a problem with the tape. what brand are you using? are you using minidv or hdv?

try buying a tape head cleaner, cleaning the tape, then putting in a different brand.

a piece of advice: never use sony tapes. they use wet lubricant as compared to a dry lubricant other brands use.

[KL1054]

it's a problem with the tape. what brand are you using? are you using minidv or hdv?

try buying a tape head cleaner, cleaning the tape, then putting in a different brand.

a piece of advice: never use sony tapes. they use wet lubricant as compared to a dry lubricant other brands use.

[harrymotion]

it's a problem with the tape. what brand are you using? are you using minidv or hdv?

try buying a tape head cleaner, cleaning the tape, then putting in a different brand.

a piece of advice: never use sony tapes. they use wet lubricant as compared to a dry lubricant other brands use.

I'm using Panasonic MiniDV tapes.

The camera is brand new it's only had 17:30hrs of recording and 0:45hrs of playback through it so I can't see how the heads are dirty but I will try.

I've further found that FCP transfers the video without missing any frames at the beginning of clips if I have the 'New clip on camera start/stop' turned off. This is great and seems to me to show there's nothing wrong with the camera.

However, if this setting (New Clip on c s/s) is turned on the first frame of every clip is lost. Why? Is that normal? Can a FCP veteran tell me maybe?

Thanks to all.