Kind of a major design flaw, don't you think?

To make a long story short, I had to rent a camera today to do an interview for a film. The camera is extremely easy to use, and well laid out. Shooting and playing back video is a snap.

However.

I need to send the interview to a producer in New York. The camera shoots to an SD memory card. Everything I have read online about the camera, and my own experience trying this out, says that SD memory card (64GB) is formatted in some kind of special "exFAT32" format which is not readable by Apple computers. The guy at Best Buy was able to read it just fine in his Windows laptop.

There's a proprietary cable I could theoretically buy that would allow me to PLAY the video while recording it into my iMac, but no way to simply click & drag the file.

Since Apples are used industry-wide for editing video, wouldn't you think they'd make the hardware compatible? WTF?

exFAT is fairly new, but not special. It will support files sizes over 4 GBytes.

Articles I have read   state that exFAT is compatible with Apples.

Most flash drives come from the factory formatted FAT32. I picked up a couple of 64 GByte flash drives recently and was surprised to see that they were still FAT32. I always format new memory devices and found XP and WIN 7 didn't offer the option to format these flash drives with FAT32 - only with exFAT or with NTFS (which is read-only for Apples, or so I have read). Fortunately, there are utility programs do do the job.

I don't know what your problem is.

Obviously I don't know what my problem is either. But I think I'm figuring it out....

My card reader also won't read the 16GB card that came with the camera, so it's not a problem with the exFAT.

I started to think... where else do I have an SD card? My Sony SLR? Nope, that's a Memory Stick. Same with my SD-quality VCR.

Wait, my Blu-ray player uses an SD card for storing local content! Yes! And THAT card is recognized and read by my card reader.

So, it's something proprietary in the formatting of this camera. I think I need a different camera.

Holy crap.

I called the camera rental store and was informed there's a USB cable permanently ATTACHED to the camera -- it's part of the handle, so I hadn't noticed it. Plug this into the computer and voila, files ready to download.

I feel so stupid.

We've all done something similar.

I was going nuts trying to find out why the new computer wouldn't communicate with the UPS. I know the driver is an old one for 32-bit systems, so I tried various fixes. Then I realized I had forgotten to plug the UPS's USB cord into the computer. DUH!

It's still strange that you can't read the SD card.

Some kind of proprietary formatting I'm guessing. Sony is kinda known for doing shit like that.

Quote :

The guy at Best Buy was able to read it just fine in his Windows laptop.

That kind of dispels the idea of it being a special format.

Can your computer see the SD card?

Looked around for similar problems and found one where it was stated that (some) Sony cameras use internal memory first and then use additional card memory when the internal memory is full. If that is true, then the memory card may be formatted in such a way that it is logically seen as an extension of internal memory. Therefore, you would not be able to read it outside of the camera.

Just a possibility.

Maybe something like that.

Yes the guy at Best Buy could read the card. No I cannot.

Stupid stupid Apple computer, bad computer.

Did your computer see the card?

No -- says the card is not readable by this computer.

The card from my Blu-ray gives no such warning, in fact is seen as another drive on the desktop.

_Howard wrote:

Looked around for similar problems and found one where it was stated that (some) Sony cameras use internal memory first and then use additional card memory when the internal memory is full.

That's the default condition but in setup you can choose the SD card first, which I did, figuring I'd want to take my files with me when I return the camera.

Looks like, as long as I offload the files before returning the camera, I could use either medium. I think I'll still use the card first though so I have a permanent record.

Very odd. So the computer sees the card but says it cannot read it.

Do you have different slots on the computer for SDHC and SDXC? A 16-Gbyte card is SDHC. FAT32 is the standard format for SDHC, while exFAT is the standard for SDXC. Maybe there is a driver problem. Have you checked Apple to see if there is an update?

Unfortunately, NoCo, you're not alone on this. In looking at the Apple Support forum, I found this thread. Apparently, it's a long-standing problem.

Found another possibility. According to one Apple support thread, it appears that drives formatted exFAT must have 1024 KB cluster size for the iMac. For Windows, the cluster size can be bigger.

Just another thing to check. Will your computer give you format info about the card?

The alternate method, of using the internal USB cable and some free software, appears to work.

I'm not going to worry about reading the card directly.*

Once I've made a couple copies of the video I'll be done with it.  The second copy is downloading now.




* - I liked the camera enough to consider buying one, to take with us to Hawaii next month. But Mrs. NoCo reminded me, "When do we EVER watch vacation videos?"

But you may need, or want, to use the card reader in the future. Wouldn't you like to know what the problem is for that eventuality?

Is it your card or does it belong to the camera store where you rented? If it's yours, you might try formatting it and see what happens.

Shucks, the video file is playable on my computer without any massaging whatsoever.

Dunno if the producer will be so lucky.

Yeah, I'm sure I can reformat the card and it'll be readable -- my other non-camera SD card is. Not sure I'm ready to reformat the master quite yet though...

Good to hear that the video file is acceptable. (I know how that must disappoint you. )

I can't understand why that card would be formatted exFAT. Did you buy the card or did it come with the camera? There's no reason for it to have that format unless you plan on creating files larger than 4GB. What brand of card is it?

It's a 64GB Lexar card I bought, just because it was on sale and I wanted plenty of space.

Oops. When I read your first post, I read 16GB for the card size.
Yes, a 64GB card may come with exFAT. And if it wasn't expressly for an Apple, it would have an allocation size larger than 1024. There is your problem, I think. Nothing wrong with the computer, other than its lack of support for this specific instance. No biggie.

I don't use exFAT or NTFS on cards and flash drives. I always use FAT32 with a 4K cluster size. Works on everything.

It turned out to be a non-issue anyway.

I was able to offload the video file, and am uploading it to DropBox as we speak. Taking a LONG time (2+ hours) but it is 29:20 of HD video.

How big is the file? Should be much less than 4 gig.

Not a non issue. You learned something about the computer's requirements. Learning is never a non issue.

I'm sitting here learning a lot about the lousy backup program Windows 7 has. When the used the backup from the company I worked for, it was much better.

The original file, as it came from the camera, was 5.04GB.  I converted it to an H.264 .MOV which is 2.36GB. The original file, a .MTS, is "suitable for burning directly to a Blu-ray" it says.

5.04 GB? Big file for 29 minutes. I guess HD does take a few more bytes than 720p.