Importing Canon HF R300 video into EXT HD (not using imovie)..??

Every application has its own preference file accessible under its name in the menu bar. As I said earlier:

What are your settings for external disks, importing of photos/videos, etc? Check preferences in all of these: iPhoto, iMovie, Finder/view, Image Capture, System Preferences>CDs&DVDs, and any other photo/graphics/video application you have.

Check to see if you have any set to anything besides getting your icon on the desktop. Since it is showing up, try it now - without any software to interfere, you should be able to drag the filw to your external. Have you tried to drag either the entire folder and/or the individual clips?

Your camera model shouldn't matter especially if you are using the SDHC card directly.

Just found this in the Apple site at OS X Mountain Lion: About AVCHD files and QuickTime Player

QuickTime Player in Mountain Lion allows you to play back, inspect, trim, export, and share video from AVCHD media. The AVCHD format is used by high definition consumer devices such as hard disk-based camcorders and digital still cameras with video.

AVCHD media is usually accessed by connecting your camcorder or camera to the Mac via a USB cable. Some devices, such as digital cameras, may also have removable memory cards that can be read using a USB card reader or the SD card slot included with some Macs.

Important: Check the documentation that came with your device (or its online support information) for information about the recommended method of transferring AVCHD media to your Mac.

Once you've transferred your AVCHD media to your Mac, it will appear as a folder on your drive. To access your clips in the media, open the folder and double-click the file named AVCHD, BDMV, or PRIVATE.

So the way I read this is that the top level folder or the foler named PRIVATE on your card is what you want to copy in. The clips are only accessible to the video software.

Can you copy either the top level or PRIVATE folder off the card?

Also have you checked out the manual for the camera. Starting at page 131 is instructions for transferring AVCHD to a computer.

bms-lou wrote:

Yea, I'm really confused. When i put in my sdhc card this time. I was able to drag the "avchd" file (that contained my 3 vis clips) over. But after i opened the avchd file, i get the 3 files inside a window like this. These are the 3 files that arent draggable and I cant even rename them. They do show that they are there...but I cant do anything with them.

I do believe this is the correct behavior for this type of video. The clips are only accessible to a video program.

I'll also, add....that after i got these vid files in my EXT HD, and when i go to imovie to import them....this entire folder is grayed out, as if I can't import them either. Weird...I'm just not getting this. I thought it'd be a simple drag and drop after i put my sdhc card in back of my imac...but its just not drag and droppable. Heck....im not even sure why the file folder shows up like a quick time file....but the 3 files above dont show have entensions of .MOV either.??

See the link I posted above,

OK good luck. I'm pretty sure this is what is going on, there were also a few posts here on ASC that seemed to address the same issue.

One other thing that's been mentioned is that the AVCHD folder acts like a OS X bundle. That is an OS X app or an iPhoto library looks like single file but if you right click on it and select Show Package Contents you see that is is really made up of multiple files in multiple directories.

If that is the case you might be able to right click on the PRIVATE folder, select Show Package Contents and get down to the clips.

Not sure if the following might or might not have anything to do with it; decided to look at the specs of your camcorder; saw that it can shoot :

NTSC:

AVCHD: 60i/PF24/PF30

I believe iMovie cannot process 60 frames per second (don't know about iPhoto since I don't use it) - are you shooting at 30 or 60 fps?

I have not tried that camera, but I have had some cameras where a disk image is a good idea (depended on which version of iMovie/Final Cut etc, which camera, which codec. etc.)

WIth Disk Utility, create a disc image (DMG) from the SD card, the entire card, to the external drive.

Do not erase the SD card yet.

Unmount the DMG.

Then (just to be sure) create a duplicate of the DMG as you try things out.

Mount the duplicate DMG (which is on the external HD) and import into iMovie/iPhoto as needed, see if that works.

Also MiroVideoConverter (free App at App store) is one of the utilities to try with conversions.

The above is a bit broad, but some tricks/workarounds that I have used.

Please check your external is formatted to MAC OS Extended.

If it's not it's wise to do so for large video files.

Note: Formatting removes all info, so backup important stuff if you decide to proceed.

I would suggest making an image of the entire SD card as the complete card structure is required for ingesting to apps like iMovie or FCP X, otherwise you will be transcoding later on rather than simply ingesting.

Al

Drew13s advice is right on. You need to save the entire contents of the card to be able to use it in Apple apps.

Creating a disk image will do this, but if you do a simple Disk Image on an 8GB card that only has used 4GB for the AVCHD, you lose 4GB of space on your disk. If you don't want to use iMovie, you can use the custom settings of Disk Utility, and create a custom size of 4.1 GB.

If you don't mind using iMovie, just go to the Import Screen and click "Create Camera Archive". This will preserve everything you need. In essence it makes a mirror image of your card. Later, you can go back and decide which clips to import. It also wastes no space.

Glad to hear you got it working. Not sure if I had mentioned the fact that I always use my SD card directly rather than try to attach my camera - if nothing else, it saves the battery and it's easier to deal with.