Mac not seeing Sony Handycam movies

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Level 1

8 points

Mac not seeing Sony Handycam movies

Hi There

I have a Sony handycam and usually when I connect it to the computer through a USB or if I put the SD card into the slot I will see a 'Private' Folder which has .MTS files in it and I will change them to .Mov files using Mpeg Streamclip and save on my Mac and edit them in FCP.. But now when I put the SD card in or connect the camera it only finds the DCIM and MISC folders. Underneath these 2 folders is a Quicktime icon called private. This is greyed out when I try and import through imovies when the camera is connected. If I put the SD card in and double click on the 'Q' private it then opens quicktime player and lists all the clips but it doesnt let me save or export these clips. I can open each clip individually and go file, export and it will export it to desktop but there are 52 clips and if I have to sit here and export each of them individually it will take ages. But if I highlight them and try and drag and drop them onto desktop it doesn't work.

What can I do to get these clips onto my mac or at least get imovies of FCP to see them?

Thanks for your help

Mich

imac, Mac OS X (10.6.6), FCP7, Motion, i3

Posted on Jan 17, 2013 4:51 PM

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Answer 1

wadage

Level 1

10 points

Jan 21, 2013 1:24 AM in response to MissMich79

Right-click Private. Select Show Package Contents. Keep doing this until you find the folder that contains the movie files.

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Answer 2

MissMich79 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 21, 2013 5:44 AM in response to wadage

Wow so simple, I did this and found the .MTS files, I'll convert them in Mpeg Streamclip to edit on FCP, what is the best format to convert them to for FCP .mov??. Thank you soooo much Wadage, now I have the birth of my baby on my Mac lol

Mich

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Answer 3

wadage

Level 1

10 points

Jan 21, 2013 4:50 PM in response to MissMich79

I am not sure the best format. I normally just use whatever format imovie allows me.

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Answer 4

babowa

Level 9

78,568 points

Jan 21, 2013 5:08 PM in response to MissMich79

These are the settings I normally use (sometimes use 720p , sometimes 1080p - my camera shoots in both, but 1080 files are so huge, that I occasionally downsize to 720).

The H.264 settings offers the least lossy compression setting. Multipass results in better quality, but takes longer.

Here are the specific MPEG Streamclip settings I use:

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Answer 5

MissMich79 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 21, 2013 6:38 PM in response to babowa

Thnx Babowa, only problem is Mpeg Streamclip doesn't recognise .MTS files so I'm trying to find another way as FCP log and transfer wont find them either

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Answer 6

babowa

Level 9

78,568 points

Jan 21, 2013 7:00 PM in response to MissMich79

Try to do a search here within the forums - there have been multiple threads with these types of files; I wish Sony would make things a bit easier, but I don't believe they've ever liked Apple.....

FWIW, copy the settings for any other app you'll be using; for instance, iMovie can export with pretty much the same, but you must choose advanced options or it will choose its preset default settings which do not produce very high quality - which is ok if you're only uploading to Youtube, but if you want to put it on a DVD to play on an HDTV, quality becomes more important.

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