Best way to ingest Sony camera movie files onto a Mac?

[cSalmon]

Wondering what the best workflow is for ingesting Sony camera's video files onto a Mac? If I use Image Capture it can grab the still photos but doesn't drill into Sony's folder system to find the clips. So I've been manually dragging the clips over onto my hard drive's selected folder. Is there a better way? I would rather copy the clips onto my external drives before I start a project in FCP.

Any workflow suggestions are appreciated. Second question is there a way to know that all the files have been copied over without any corruption? I guess a verification question instead of me opening each file up before I format the card(s)

thanks

 

[BrianBaughn]

It will help if you disclose your Sony camera model, your Mac model, and the version of macOS that your are running on it.

 

[cSalmon]

The Sony cameras range from the fs-5 to the a7 alpha series and the rx models. The Mac OS are both Monterey and Mojave. I don't see any different between behavior except when comparing Sony's file structure to Canon's. Image Capture doesn't seem to be able to see and therefore download the Sony movie clips. What am I missing?

 

[BrianBaughn]

Sony has camera drivers for Mac. Have you installed those?

 

[Dave Braine]

Have you tried iMovie to see if it recognises the camera(s)?

 

[cSalmon]

how safe are those Sony drivers? I was under the impression Sony's software was notorious for collecting data on it's users?

 

[BrianBaughn]

how safe are those Sony drivers? I was under the impression Sony's software was notorious for collecting data on it's users?

I don't know. I see where, four years ago, their drivers were requiring the user to basically grant root access to get them installed…which was a BIG no-no. That was before security was stepped up in macOS itself. If the current drivers install without requiring the user to take such steps then I'd think they're OK now in that respect.

I don't see anything about gathering info on users. You might find more info on this at sonyalphaforum.com, which I think is an independent website.

 

[coolguy4747]

Wondering what the best workflow is for ingesting Sony camera's video files onto a Mac? If I use Image Capture it can grab the still photos but doesn't drill into Sony's folder system to find the clips. So I've been manually dragging the clips over onto my hard drive's selected folder. Is there a better way? I would rather copy the clips onto my external drives before I start a project in FCP.

Any workflow suggestions are appreciated. Second question is there a way to know that all the files have been copied over without any corruption? I guess a verification question instead of me opening each file up before I format the card(s)

thanks

Is there a reason you don't want to drag and drop, or just seeing if there's another way? I'm not a professional and am not familiar with pro workflows, but this is how I do it. I am not aware of a way to check for corruption besides opening all the files. I guess you could try opening them all at once, or queueing them with an app like VLC, and see if it gives you any errors.

 

[cSalmon]

I've been doing the drag n drop, I just can't believe there's not a better way after all this time. It seems prone to user error especially with high capacity cards.

 

[cSalmon]

I guess I'm trying to ingest files(both still & Movie) from a card into my hard drives without using a cataloging program that wants to read previews. I've looked at Graphic Converter but again it seems like it wants to do too much browser, editor, etc.. I really want to ingest with a barebones software that's double checking validity of the files being transferred.

A side question: when you guys move files from one hard drive to another are you using anything to double check the transfer?

 

[sevoneone]

Is your workflow that you prefer to have your media/footage stored separately from the FCP Library? Because Final Cut has the ability to do that. Select your Library in FCP, then Modify Setting for Storage Locations in the inspector. You can select any folder on any drive for media storage. Then you can use FCP's Import Media function, which should be able to cut through the Sony directory structure and just show you clips on the card/device. It will copy/transcode the media to that location instead of inside the library and you can browse those folders outside of Final Cut. Is that along the lines that you are looking for?

If you need to copy data and ensure integrity, take a look at the app CopyQueue on the App Store. It has an option to enable verification for copy jobs.

 

[cSalmon]

has anyone used Hedge software? I am wondering if it's overkill for my needs? Also is verification such as checksum still wise or is Mac's OS parity check more than enough for file transfer verification?

Thanks again for all the help, just trying to learn this stuff as it's mostly over my head