iLife forum: iMovie 09 on my macbook pro unable to import DV or mp4 files

MacBook Pro / Intel Core 2 Duo / 2.4 GHz / 2GB RAM Mac OS X (10.6.1)

I own a Sony Sony Cyber-shot DSC-V camera. Video files it creates are supposedly in MPEG1 format (according to the info pane in iPhoto). I use MPEG Streamclip to convert the files to either mp4 or dv format.

iMovie 09 is supposed to recognize both dv and mpeg4 files, and it does that just fine on an Intel computer at the local mac store.

My macbook pro with Mac OS 10.6.1 and iMovie 8.0.5 (820) however, does not. I have deleted the iMovie 09 application, removed all iMovie "receipts" and reinstalled the program without success. Reinstalling Snow Leopard has also not resolved the issue. Importing dv and mpeg4 files to iMovie from a new user account didn't work either.

From what I can tell, my Snow Leopard upgrade DVD is unable to perform an "Archive and Install". The mac store told me if Mac OS 10.6 is already installed on a computer, that the installer will automatically perform an archive and install. An Archive and Install did not happen on my machine when reinstalling Snow Leopard.

The Mac store now recommends that I initialize the hard drive and begin with a fresh install of Snow Leopard. For obvious reasons, this is an option I wish to avoid.

Pulling my hair.... Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks