Can iMovie import Sony MicroMV videos?

The good news is that there is a freeware application that appears to help solve the problem, but before I talk about it, let me just say that there's a lot of negative information about the Micro MV format from Sony, notably the following:

"Stay away from cameras that don't support DV (Mini DV), most notably Sony's Micro MV/IP series and all DVD recording camcorders. These "MPEG cameras" take lower quality video so, you do not want to use them anyway. MPEG-2 is not "ahead" of "older systems". The DV format used by iMovie and most camcorders is of significantly higher quality than a heavily compressed format like MPEG-2. MPEG-2 is lower quality, period. Compressed formats like MPEG-2 are designed for distribution, not editing. When you use MPEG-2 as source material, it must be decompressed before editing and re-compressed for distribution. This results in significant loss of quality. The advantage of MPEG-2 camcorders it the ability to cram more material on less tape which allows for smaller form factors. It has no advantages in terms of quality or editing.

"Plus, Sony uses a proprietary implementation that forces even PC users to use only Sony's editing application. This is done for the purpose of selling there own PCs. Whether Apple will support the format in the future relies on Apple getting permission and probably paying licensing fees to Sony. And, there are general licensing fee associated with MPEG-2 in general."

That's from a very useful Web site about Working with iMovie.

Now, having shared that disclaimer, go and check out MPEG Streamclip for Mac OS X and see if it'll do what you want. As the author of the program points out:

"MPEG Streamclip is also compatible with most MPEG-2 devices that use program or transport stream files, including FireWire MPEG-2 devices like Sony IP7/MicroMV, Sony HDR-FX1 and JVC GR-HD1 camcorders..."

This is a very complex application, however, as the screen shot attests:

Hopefully, though, you can get everything working happily with your Sony camcorder and your Mac. Good luck!