Many digital cameras will also take video clips. When I am taking pictures of my nieces, I will often take a couple of short video clips as well. When I get back to the computer, iPhoto imports the video clips right along with the photos.
When you want to watch the video clip in iPhoto, all you have to do is double-click it and it opens in Quicktime. All is good in the world.
That is, until you try to use those video clips in iMovie or iDVD. iMovie will import the movie just fine, but there is no sound. iDVD just doesn't want to work with these videos at all. I can't speak for every digital camera, but I know this effects Sony cameras because that is what I have. From what I have read, it applies to other camera brands as well.
The problem is that most digital cameras record their video in an older format that iMovie and iDVD don't recognize. The video must be converted to a newer format to be used. Over the years, I've seen several round about ways of doing this conversion, but recently I found some software that makes the conversion very painless.
The software is called ViddyUp! and it's actual job is to convert video for iPods and AppleTV. It just happens that once you get your video in a format the iPod likes, iMovie and iDVD like it as well.
ViddyUp! costs $10 to register, but it will convert 2 1/2 minutes worth of video without registration so you can try it out.
Here's how to make the video conversion:
Launch ViddyUp! and go to
Preferences.
On the Videos tab make sure that the Save To option is set to iTunes Music Folder and Add to iTunes Library is checked.
Drag your video clip from iPhoto to the ViddyUp! window. (You can also drag to the ViddyUp! Dock icon which I found easier to do.)
Once the video clip loads in ViddyUp!, you will see a drop down menu for Encoding. Choose iPod, 640 x 480, MPEG-4. Then click Process.
When the conversion ends, you will have a newly created video in iTunes in a playlist called ViddyUp!.
Now, when you are in iMovie or iDVD, you can easily import that video clip right from iTunes.
Without a SuperDrive, you can still use iMovie to make movies that you can show on your computer. You can also create a project in iDVD, save the project and copy it to a computer that does have a SuperDrive for burning.
Leopard (the next version of Mac OS X) is coming in October 07. New version of iLife? Who knows. But the bad news is that if you don't have a SuperDrive, new software isn't going to give you one. The SuperDrive is part of the computer itself.
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Geeklog 
Yesterday's tip showed me I do not have Super Drive. Can I transfer movies if I don't have Super Drive?
When is the new version coming out so I can have all the bells and whistles?
zupdoc