If you haven’t yet realized that video is a great way to connect with your customer-base and build relationships – then you need to get going on this media!

Aside from it really boosting your appearance in search engines, other websites will pick up and feature your content. Recently 4 of my videos were featured on encyclopedia.com – I just stumbled across them by accident!

Anyway, I recently bought a Canon Vixia HF-11 video camera (with separate mic) and I’m thrilled with it – but, I could not figure out how to upload the videos to my Apple Mac. I tried with both iPhoto and iMovie, but neither seemed to detect the camera. Well, I could go on and on about all the things I tried that didn’t work…but let’s just get to the good part.

Now, if you want to import quickly and be able to select which videos to import, then you’ll have to buy a AVCHD file converter like Voltaic. However, if you’re okay to import all your videos at once, then this is how you can do it:

1. Hook up your Canon to your Mac using the USB cable

2. Open up iMovie. Turn your Canon Vixia HF-11 on with the “video playback” icon selected on the dial on the upper right hand side of the camera. On the camera screen select “pc/printer”.

3. In iMovie click on:

File –> Import Movies

In the window that pops up, select the icon for your Canon Vixia under the left hand menu titled DEVICES

Then click on the folder marked: ACVHD

Then double click on the folder marked: CANON

4. Wait anywhere from 10 seconds to 5 minutes. Then the import box will pop up and you will be able to import your videos into iMovie. Unfortunately, you cannot choose to import just one video, you have to import all of them.

5. When you’re finished, make sure to EJECT the device (if it doesn’t happen automatically) before unhooking the USB cable.

And that’s it! Pretty darn simple – thank god.