captures standard definition DV to the miniDV tape. This camcorder should work back to the original iMovie that was delivered with MacOS 9.2 or so. The camcorder will not "mount" like an external mass storage device - hence will not be "recognized" - at least not in the traditional manner of being visible in the System Profiler.
A few assumptions (and I can't see what you see, so please bear with me it I am redundant)...
1) The firewire400 port on the Mac is working. Check System Preferences: Network: show Network Port Configurations: There is a checkmark in the "Built-in Firewire" selection.
2) You got a 4-pin to 6-pin firewire cable. You know it works.
3) The camcorder is in "Play" or "VCR" mode.
4) The camcorder is also plugged into AC power.
5) The camcorder does NOT have its USB port plugged into anything.
6) You have not made any changes to the camcorder menu settings related to "iLINK conversion" or anything associated with video playback options or i.Link (or firewire) connectivity).
So... when you launch iMovieHD (does not matter the version since this camcorder does standard definition only):
a) Click the button associated with "Create a New Project"
b) Name the project (default is "My Great Movie.iMovieProject"... the ONLY part of this file name you want to change is the "My Great Movie" part - leave the ".iMovieProject" alone. At the bottom middle of this window, there is a drop-down that lets you select the video format... For the HC36, select "DV" if your captured video is 4:3... select "DV widescreen" if you captured 16:9. Pick the location you want the video file stored. Click on "Create".
c) The iMovie blue window showing "Camcorder connected" should appear. Using the iMovie tape controls, rewind the tape in the camcorder (You can use the camcorder controls, too).
d) When ready, Click "Import". Standard definition will import real-time - one hour of video takes one hour to import. There will probably be no audio during the import. Don't worry about it. When the import is complete, the blue screen will return. Click the "Stop" tape transport control. Save the file.
e) The clips will most likely import to the Clips pane. Drag what you want to the Timeline. Edit. Add transitions, credits, titles... Save.
e) Click the DVD button. Add Chapters. Save.
f) Export or Share in whatever formats you want to write to... Computer readable data files, or click on iDVD again and then click burn DVD. iDVD will launch automatically. Customize the menu selection, use a still from iPhoto to customize the background.
g) Add a sound track from iTunes...
You do not need MPEG StreamClip for the DCR-HC36 - StreamClip is for use with hard drive and flash memory camcorders saving to very highly compressed MPEG2 data files.
One of my computers is a 17"flatpanel iMac running OSX 10.4.11 and iMovieHD06 on a 2 GHz PPC. I connected one of my Sony camcorders and went step by step through this process to provide some of these instructions just to be sure they are accurate.
If this still does not work, there is something else happening, so additional troubleshooting will be required.
Let us know how it goes...