New Sony FDR-AX-53

[Ron Cooper]

Not sure if I'm the right spot for this question, but I cannot find the 4K files on the PC when I try to look at the card files. - Where do they hide them & what is their ext. format. I have just returned from o'seas & all I could do was to download the complete card - (Eg - F Drv), to the PC as I did not know what files to look for.

I did notice that every video file in XAVC S HD has a separate file after it which appears to be a still frame image.
This to me is a real pain as for video only you need to select every alternate file. - Weird. Surely there has to be a better way to do this.

Curiously, on this cam you cannot play back 4K material if you have the camera record settings on XAVC S HD, - the files are greyed out. Likewise, you cannot playback XAVC video if the recording is set to 4K.

Also, I'm somewhat disappointed with the 4K, as you can only record in 25P with noticeably jerky results even with people just walking ! - However the high bit rate XAVC setting allows you to record at 50P which is excellent. Hence I have recorded very little in 4k. To me it is simply unacceptable. - Why don't Sony allow a higher frame rate for 4K ?

I have Vegas PRO 14 so I hope it will be able to handle the files from this camera.

Does anyone have experience with this otherwise great little camera. The floating lens steady shot & powerful zoom are amazing. Also, the ability to lock the focus & still have the exposure assigned to the front ring.

Thanks,

Ron C.

[Noa Put]

To import video files from these type of sony camera you need to use sony playmemories home which you can download for free, it can be you have to connect your camera to teh pc the first time you use this software but after that you can just plugin in the sdcard in a cardreader. Playmemories also combines long continuous recordings into one file without frameloss.

About this camera not shooting 4K 50P, at this moment not many camera's are capable of shooting 4K50p and in order to have that you need to spend at least 3K+, that was until the GH5 introduced it as the first camera capable of doing this below that pricepoint.

[Ron Cooper]

Thanks Noa, I shall investigate. - Including the GH5 !

To me, 4K at only 25P was a bitter disappointment.

Regards,

Ron C.

[Mark Rosenzweig]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

To import video files from these type of sony camera you need to use sony playmemories home which you can download for free, it can be you have to connect your camera to teh pc the first time you use this software but after that you can just plugin in the sdcard in a cardreader. Playmemories also combines long continuous recordings into one file without frameloss.

The above is not correct. You do not need any special program to import the XAVC S 4K files into your computer. They are just files regular video files. [Playmemories has one special capability, as Noah says - it will combine *long* clips that are chopped into sub files without loss. If you shoot small clips, you do not have to use the program. I am not sure that the XAVC S files are ever chopped up, so I doubt there is any utility to this program at all.]

The XAVC S file structure has the video files under Root/Clip (I am sorry I don't have an sd card file structure in front of me). They are MP4 files (extension MP4), so just do a search on the folder you copied for *.MP4, and you will see them.

I shoot Sony XAVC S 4K all the time (formerly with the AX100, now with Sony a7s ii and A6500), and I use Vegas Pro 14, which works fine with these files.

[Noa Put]

The above is not correct.

Playmemories has one special capability, as Noah says - it will combine *long* clips

What is it now, correct or not correct? If you have longer continuous recording you"ll need the program to combine the spanned clips without frame loss, at least I get frameloss when I combine them straight from the card.

[Ron Evans]

If cards are formatted exFat then XAVC-S will be one long clip per take. AVCHD will still be individual sections as if it was still FAT32 format so these will need to be joined correctly and Playmemories is the way to do that. I still use Playmemories or Catalyst Browse for XAVC-S as I see no point in chancing a poor transfer to PC using a NLE ingest. Using either Playmemories or Catalyst one can specify where the files go and thus have control over what the NLE does afterwards. The other advantage in using Playmemroies to ingest is it keeps a log of all the metadata so that one can use this to sort by calendar etc and if using one of the cameras that record GPS data etc it will also keep this information. There is no time benefit in my mind using the NLE to ingest as the difference is purely dragging from directory to timeline. Hopefully the manufacturer of the camera knows best how to transfer files to the PC. I edit mainly with EDIUS 8.5WG but also use Vegas 14 both the latest versions. If you want to use Playmemories to edit it will include the GPS data in the split screen edit. I have used this will my Sony AS30 for my skiing holiday video as an example.

[Mark Rosenzweig]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

What is it now, correct or not correct? If you have longer continuous recording you"ll need the program to combine the spanned clips without frame loss, at least I get frameloss when I combine them straight from the card.

When a statement contains anything incorrect, it is incorrect even if there are some correct things. I pointed out what was incorrect and what was correct. I will state it again: What is not correct is your originally saying that this guy "needs" PlayMemories to copy the XAVC S 4K MP4 files to his computer. He does not unless he has spanned clips. However, there are no XAVC S 4K spanned clips, but it would have been helpful to point out originally that unless he has spanned clips he does not need PlayMemories.

I hope that is clear to you and to him.

To repeat, as the above post correctly says, there are no spanned clips using XAVC S 4K, as the cards must be formatted exFAT to shoot 4K on the AX100. Thus any advice that he "needs" to use Playmemories (or any third party software) to copy XAVC S 4K files is completely false ("To import video files from these type of sony camera[sic] you need to use sony playmemories home..".).

I also think it is a complete and total waste of time and resources to use a special program just to copy video clips to a directory. Just use the Windows copy command - you can specify where the files go, obviously. The video files are dated, and you can sort them by date in Windows if you want. You can also read some metadata in Windows. Editors ingest the files, and have other capabilities for sorting anyway.

And yes, I have shot scores of hours of 4K video with the AX100 (same file structure and codecs as the AX53) and edited them in Vegas Pro; never imported a single clip (and especially no spanned clips) using any third party program.

I use catalyst Browse to create LUTs (for Slog2 shot on my A7sii) and read metadata, but not to copy files! I use PlayMemories to embed GPS data in Sony X3000 4K video, but I never use it to just copy files. You can use all the capabilities of PlayMemories or Catalyst Browse (if you need them) without ever using them just to read over files from the sd card. Each is perfectly capable of working with any files in any directory, no auxiliary files needed.

[Dave Blackhurst]

Playmemories Home is free, and not all that bad for organizing your still and video files on top of being good for importing and such. For the price, it's worth a look <wink>. But if one has a different workflow, it might be redundant or a waste of space.

There WAS a time when one actually needed the Sony software for stitching longer (AVCHD?) clips, but I think current files formats shouldn't run into that?

While we dream of 50p/60p, at least in the first couple rounds, the practicalities of shovelling all the bits through the sensor/processor/memory kept it to 4k25/30p on all the consumer priced cams. It's possible to get higher frame/refresh rates (referring to 4K computer displays), for a price... not necessarily a price that the average consumer is currently interested in paying!

[Alan Craven]

There is still one situation in which you need to stitch XAVC S files - some cameras with two memory card slots automatically switch cards when the first card is full, and any clip recording at the time spans the two cards.

My FDR-AX1 is one camera which does this. The file 4K XAVC S structure on the cards is M4ROOT folder, containing CLIP, SUB, THMBNL folders plus Mediapro.xml and Status.bin files.

The clip files are in the CLIP folder and are *.mp4, plus an accompanying *M01.XML file.

In normal circumstances the SUB and THMBNL folders are empty.

I use Catalyst Browse to transfer my files, and find it convenient. I wish Sony would extend their Media Management Utility to the newer XQD cards. This has the very useful trick of being able to copy your files to three destinations at once. I have AX1 Injest folders on my Media drive, an NAS box, and a mirrored pair of drives in an external USB3 box. So I would get working files and two external backups in one move. At the moment this requires three separate copying actions.