Transferring video from a HD camcardor that uses a SD card.

Question

I need help, I have an iMac and I would like to transfer my video from my new HD SD card video camcorder to imovie. When I try the video is broken into photo clips. How can I transfer all of the video footage from my SD card in my imac's imovie?

Answer 1

Hi Mary - no worries about responses.
I am no expert about handling the AVCHD format, nor using OS10.7. Under OS10.6 I have not had a problem when I copy the whole PRIVATE folder containing all the subfolders. Because the AVCHD format has a specific encoding system and folder structure, the programs used to read and/or edit AVCHD material need to have all the folders to have enough data to put the whole movie together. I think Panasonic has a program used specifically to handle AVCHD movies and convert them into more familiar formats. Final Cut has similar capabilities (at least FCP did). I believe the current OS10.7 version of Quicktime Player can play AVCHD and likely needs the whole folder system, too.
The short answer is that you can do an ordinary copying routine, but copy the whole Private folder and everything inside it, to get the whole movie and all the data that the import/conversion programs need to assemble the whole movie. I would copy that into a new folder with the name you want for the movie.
There are actually movie clips deep inside the inner folders, but they are in a special format and a long movie is split up into (I think) 2GB segments to conform to a filesize limitation.
You may need to ask an AVCHD expert the best workflow, once you determine how you intend to handle the movies - for example, if you intend to import into an editing program, or perhaps you just want to convert them into a more convenient, ordinary format like .mov.