I use a mini-DV camcorder which downloads movies directly to my Mac inot iMovie via Firewire. On a hard-drive camcorder, I think it may work the same way my Canon digital still camera does to download it's movies. In your Mac, you have a built-in program called Image Capture (look inside the Application folder). Launch it, then select Preferences where you can tell Image Capture to open when you connect a USB device, like a hard-drive camcorder. Image Capture opens a window where you can see all files in your camera and select which ones to download, including movie files. Once that movie file downloads, you may be able to simply drag the file into the clip window of iMovie6. If not, download the free program called MPEG Streamclip where you can convert the file to DV for iMovie. My iMovie6 imports the movie files from my Canon digital still camera that I download to the desktop without using MPEG Streamclip.