Importing 4K video from RX100 MK4 to Mac

[smileman]

Hello,

I shoot video in XAVC S 4K in 25pm 100M. I am wondering how best to manage my videos using a Mac?

In the past with my RX100 MK1 I simply copy and pasted the AVCHD file from the SD Card over to my hard drive. However, XAVC S 4K has a slightly different looking file structure/container and I am wondering what I need to copy and paste so that I don't lose anything?

I don't suppose there is a way for iPhoto to manage the video import process automatically?

 

[joema2]

This topic is often debated, even among professional videographers. Supposedly the best approach is copy the entire folder tree from the SD card to your hard drive. OS X helps to enforce that with AVCHD by showing the folder tree only as a monolithic file bundle.

However XAVC-S appears as a visible folder tree. In theory the best approach is copy the entire folder tree to your hard drive, then import from there (assuming you want to save a backup of the original folder tree). During import, video software will often drill down into the folder tree and show you only the video files.

Alternatively, various software can import directly from the SD card, which ends up in a library or database somewhere. Afterward you'd have to use the features of that software to back up the data, or else back up the entire disk volume.

A complication is that Sony cameras number video files as C0001.mp4, etc and reset the sequence every time you change SD card. This cannot be overridden or modified (at least with the A6300 and A7RII). This leads to lots of duplicate file names over time.

The files cannot be easily renamed since the original filename is embedded in the XML "sidecar" files which accompany the .mp4 files. Even if you rename both .mp4 and XML files the same, some software such as Final Cut Pro X will throw errors trying to import that since the renamed files conflict with the original name embedded in the XML.

This in turn leads people to just delete the XML files which you ideally should not do, but Sony has created a file system which actually encourages people to do this. It is a very poor situation.

 

[smileman]

However XAVC-S appears as a visible folder tree. In theory the best approach is copy the entire folder tree to your hard drive.

Thank you for the detailed reply. This is a frustrating situation.

To clarify, in the case of the RX100 IV, I should copy the folder named "private" and all its contents from my SD card onto my hard drive?

I would also appreciate a simple software suggestion for working with both photos and videos from the RX100 IV. While I shoot in RAW and previously would occasionally use Lightroom I don't do much photo editing these days. I was hoping the included Mac Photos app would handle both photos and video, but I believe it only manages photos.

One possible complication is that I store all my photos on a separate hard drive that I never connect to my primary Macbook. That hard drive is connected to a MacMini that I only use as a Plex server.

Thanks.

 

[Gwendolini]

Also take a look at Hedge, the free version does copy to two drives and it does checksums (to verify the copied content is copied correctly).

Just mount the SD card, select the SD card as source in Hedge and then select the target drive(s) and start copying. That is much better than using Finder.

 

[joema2]

Thank you for the detailed reply. This is a frustrating situation.

To clarify, in the case of the RX100 IV, I should copy the folder named "private" and all its contents from my SD card onto my hard drive?...

In theory you should copy the entire contents of the SD card at the root level to a folder on your hard drive. If that root folder contains only a "private" folder, copy that. If it contains several folders such as DCIM, copy those even if empty. Some cameras record different video material to different folders depending on what codec is selected. It is too hard to keep up with and easy to make a mistake and not copy material, then the card gets formatted and the material is lost.

I think the only reliable way to rename XAVC-S video files and associated XML sidecar files is using Sony's Catalyst software, which they recently moved to a subscription-only model. It is a bad situation.

 

[smileman]

I'm going to get a Sony A7ii and just want to confirm that all of the above also applies for the A7ii?