You should see the footage being played on the camcorder. Once you start playing your footage, you should see it appear on the iMovie screen. Press the Import button onscreen to start converting footage into digital movie clips on your hard disk. Press it again to stop. Import only the essential shots.
Digital video takes up a lot of hard disk space.
For my two-minute video, I worked with 15 minutes of raw footage which took up 2.5GB of disk space. 2000 SPH AsiaOne Ltd. All rights reserved.