Can't import movies from JVC MOD/TOD camcorder to iMovie?

So anyone who has purchased a JVC Everio HDD video camera has probably learned that they chose to use some god forsaken video format – the .MOD extension. Apparently this is some sort of MPEG2 encoding, however, most major video editing suites prefer not to accept this format, take iMovie as example, its common compatible formats including M4V, MPEG-4 or DV.