Cannot import videos into Photos after migrating to a newer Mac

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Level 1

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Cannot import videos into Photos after migrating to a newer Mac

Hi! I have a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5 camera which shoots videos in the AVCHD Lite format and stores them on an SDXC card. For years, I have successfully used Apple Photos to import and view the photos and videos from camera. I was using an old MacBook Pro running MacOS 10.13.6 and Photos 3.0. I more recently upgraded to an (Intel) MacBook Pro running MacOS 10.15 and Photos 6.0. While the Photos software happily imports photos from the SD card, it neither recognises nor imports the videos on the SD card. However it happily plays the previously imported videos so it still seems to support the AVCHD Lite format in some way. I have subsequently updated to MacOS 11.2.2 and the problem continues. I note that the Photos application has remained at version 6.0.

I use a third party USB-C dock with an SD card slot on the new MacBook Pro. To rule it out as a possible source of problems, I inserted the SD card into the SD slot in my old MacBook Pro and shared it over the network. Photos on my new MacBook Pro could only see the photos but not the videos on the card.

I also tried creating a new Admin account on my new Mac and then importing the SD card into the fresh Photos library in that account. Again, only photos were imported and no videos.

I would be grateful for any ideas as to how to solve this problem but I suspect a change between Photos 3.0 and Photos 6.0 may be causing this issue. Thank you for any help you can provide!

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.2

Posted on Mar 1, 2021 3:44 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

TonyCollinet

Level 7

24,044 points

Mar 3, 2021 1:45 AM in response to TonyCollinet

OK - this is what I have found.

I also cannot import MTS Files (as screenshot above)

Renaming to MP4 doesn't work (not surprising)

Converting to MP4 does work. I used the app freemp4converter - https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/free-mp4-converter/id693443591?mt=12 which seems to do the job. I can't say if this is the best, just the first I found. It can batch convert multiple videos in one step, but make sure it is keeping the original resolution, frame rate, and bit rate (Get back to me if you decide to go this way and need more detail)

I've checked your camera manual - you don't seem to have the option of recording directly in MP4 format for HD (it is a 10+ year old camera model), so you are stuck with not importing to photos, or converting to a format that you can import.

Thanks for the reminder. When I migrated from lightroom, I decided to set up a separate library just for video - I haven't done it yet, and I've got some conversion to do on older videos.🙂

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Answer 2

Mar 3, 2021 12:37 AM in response to lucky_luke

Hi - Since Catalina some older formats have been "deprecated" (Ie no longer supported). However AVCHD Lite is a specific format (codec in fact) that is listed as compatible. However video is also contained in a container file format (EG .mts .mp4 etc)

In the list of compatible container formats, MTS is not listed.

Can you choose different video formats for your camera. I use MP4 on my panasonic as standard, and they import OK.

I've just found an MTS file of mine - also taken on a panasonic camera. I get this message - is it the same thing you see (I'm on Catalina)

Let me play with that a little to find out how to import.

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Answer 3

Mar 2, 2021 12:24 AM in response to lucky_luke

Hi - What happens if you rename them so the extension is .MP4?

If that doesn't work, you might need to convert the videos to MP4 using Handbrake app.

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Answer 4

lucky_luke Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 2, 2021 4:13 PM in response to TonyCollinet

Hi Tony,

Thank you for your reply. I do have a workaround for this issue but it's not convenient. What I'm trying to find out is if Photos can be made to work as it has done in the past, i.e. import all my photos and videos from an SD card.

When I connect the SD card to my Mac, I see the pictured contents in the SD card named NO NAME. All the photos are located in the DCIM folder and subfolders. All the videos are located in a container file named AVCHD so I cannot directly tinker with filenames or extensions.

If I open the AVCHD container file, I see several items including a container file named BDMV which contains the movies.

If I open BDMV, I see several items including the STREAM folder. This folder contains all the movies with an MTS extension.

The workaround is to copy them over on to my Mac and then play them with VLC Player. Strangely I still cannot import them into Photos which is very inconvenient. If I go somewhere, I want to keep all my photos and videos together in the one album in the one application. iPhoto and subsequently Photos have allowed me to do that previously. However the current version of Photos 6.0 seems to have lost that ability even though I can play previously imported videos from my camera. I suspect that's a bug rather than intentional but would greatly appreciate hearing from anyone who has encountered a similar problem and maybe even a solution!

Thank you for any suggestions.

Regards,

Luke.

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Answer 5

Mar 3, 2021 2:09 AM in response to TonyCollinet

There is also handbrake for conversion - which is open source. A little more complicated to use though.

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Cannot import videos into Photos after migrating to a newer Mac

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