Video Files Recorded on SD Card Used in Canon AVCHD Camcorder Not Visible Under Mountain Lion

Question

Hello:
Mountain Lion seems to treat the storage media (an SD card) used to record video in my Canon AVCHD camcorder differently than Mac OS X 10.7, 10.6 and 10.5.
When the card is inserted into the built in-card reader, it mounts as one would expect; however, a folder named "Private" appears and nothing seeems to be inside of it. If I use a machine running 10.7, 10.6, or 10.5, I'm able to drill down the fodler structure to the MTS files.
Anyone know of a way to tell 10.8 to see the data structure as 10.7 would?
I'm guessing that 10.8 wants me to use iMovie or Final Cut Pro X to access the video; however, the files need to remain as they are (i.e. mts files) and used in Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects.
This one is kind of obscure, I know.
Thank you for any input.
-Warren

Answer 1

Let's see...
Sounds like you're running into an expected issue if you make an alias to removeable media.  The same thing would happen if you made the alias to a folder on a DVD-R disc or CD-R.  If you eject the original, you disable the alias.
If you copy the entire SD card volume to your drive, the PRIVATE package should copy across.  Then, as a folder on your hard drive rather than a volume on removeable media, you could make an alias to the STREAM package for quicker access later.
I'm pretty sure that Handbrake, like Prmeiere Pro, can see the MTS files directly.  That is, it's not dependant on the other folders in the PRIVATE directory sturcture.  As such, you could copy the contents of the STREAM package to another folder on your drive.  Just be mindful of the default MTS file names if you're using more than one SD card (you don't want to accidentally copy 00001.MTS from one card over 00001.MTS from another card).
As long as Handbrake sees MTS directly, you could even rename the MTS files after you've copied them.
On a side note, I almost always archive my SD cards with the data structure intact.  More often than not, that file structure is important to corretly access the video stored within that structure.  If something unexpected happens while working with the MTS files, it is good to have the original file structure to go back to.  Although, SD cards are getting to be so low cost that sometimes I just label the SD card and store it for archiving.
-Warren