I’m looking to import video clips to a new iPad and lay a voiceover track using iMovie for a project my daughter is working on. What I’ve found from searching the web says to use a “container” of mp4 and use the H.264 codec.
I took the videos I wanted and used handbrake to convert them, being sure to specify the parameters above. The resulting file was transferred to the iPad, works with the default iPad Video Player, but iMovie isnt able to “see” the file.
Any suggestions?
Use an App called FlexPlayer. I have yet to come across a video file type it doesn’t play flawlessly.
Oh, and it’s free.
The OP isn’t having trouble viewing the video. The trouble is editing it with iMovie.
After about 3 hours of searching, I’ve finally got it figured out.
The file format I described works just fine on the iPad. Its the importing to the iPad that had gone wrong. I had originally just dragged and dropped the video on to the iPad icon and the transfer to the iPad completed. Simple, right? Wrong.
The correct way, apparently, is to go to the “Photos” section of the iPad within iTunes, select “include videos” to the folder that you have synced and make sure the video is in that folder. Then, once you have synced the iPad the video will show up NOT in the Movie section, it shows up in the Photos section of the iPad.
At that point, iMovie will see the video. 
Thanks to MyGreatiPhone at YouTube who made a video complete enough to include that little detail. God knows that I never saw it in the hour or so I spent on apple’s website, in fact the Apple Support Manual just says…sorry, I’m getting carried away and this will end up in the Pit if I continue.