Importing clips from a Sony MicroDV

[Paul Villasenor]

Hi,
I have a friend who's trying to import video clips from his Sony 
MicroDV camcorder into his Mac. As you all know, the MicroDV clips are 
MPEG-2 and can't be handled directly by iMovie. Any suggestions? Right 
now he's using what sounds like a console unit (not an analog-digital 
converter, but possibly another camcorder) that receives the 
audio/video out from the MicroDV camcorder and sends out the clip to 
his MiniDV camcorder which in turn goes to his Mac. He mentioned 
something about Pixela software (made to be used with these MicroDV 
camcorders), but he doesn't know if it will work with VirtualPC. (Does 
anyone know if he can import the clips via Pixela in VirtualPC and 
convert them to DV to use in iMovie?) He likes this camcorder so much, 
I think he said he's even considered buy a Windows machine just run 
Pixela. Does anyone know of any Mac utilities that will let him take 
the video off the camera and and convert it to DV? Do the high-end 
video editing apps (Final Cut Pro (or Express), Avid, etc.) support 
this camera?


Thanks in advance,
Paul Villasenor