How to import footage from a camera card

Plug the card in, open Video by Zaweba and choose File > Import a camera card. It recognises the folder layouts cameras write, including Panasonic P2, Canon XF, Sony XDCAM and XAVC, AVCHD and plain DCIM folders, and brings in the clips rather than the clutter of system files around them. With ingest settings switched on, it also copies the files into a media folder, checks each copy by SHA-256, and can convert them to ProRes 422 or DNxHR HQ on the way.

Camera cards are not just folders of video. Many cameras split a long recording across several files, keep the sound or metadata in separate files, and bury the clips several folders deep. Dragging files off a card by hand is how people end up with half a clip or the wrong file entirely.

Before you start

Copy before you format. A card is not a safe place for footage you care about, and it is easy to reuse a card before its contents are backed up. Use ingest to copy everything to your drive first.

Choose where the media lives. Decide on a folder for the project's footage, ideally on a drive with plenty of room, and point the ingest settings at it.

Ingesting a card

Insert the card or connect the camera so the card shows up as a drive.

Choose File > Import a camera card and point it at the card. Video by Zaweba works out which camera layout it is looking at.

Set ingest options. Turn on copying into your media folder so the project uses files on your drive rather than on the card. Copies are checked by SHA-256, a fingerprint of each file, so a copy that doesn't match the original is caught rather than discovered later. If you want an editing-friendly codec, choose to convert to ProRes 422 or DNxHR HQ as part of the copy.

Import. The clips arrive in the media bin. Make bins for each card, day or camera to keep things findable; typing a name like Interviews/Day 1 makes one bin inside another.

Let proxies build. Each clip gets a small 540p proxy in the background so the preview stays smooth on a laptop, while exports still render from the originals.

Good habits with camera media

Keep the original structure as a backup. Your ingested copies are what you edit with; a second backup of the whole card on another drive is cheap insurance.

Label as you go. The Metadata tab lets you log scene, shot, take, stars and keywords, and the bin's find can filter by that logged metadata later. Save XMP writes a sidecar file if you want the notes to travel with the media.

Mind the formats. Converting to ProRes 422 or DNxHR HQ makes files larger but easier to cut on some machines. If the original files play smoothly with proxies, you may not need to convert at all.

Recording still going? Refresh growing files re-reads recordings that are still being written, which helps when footage is being captured while you start editing.

When the card isn't recognised

Some cameras and phones write ordinary video files into DCIM, which Video by Zaweba handles. If a card uses a layout it doesn't recognise, copy the files to your drive and import them with ordinary import. Video by Zaweba opens MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, WMV, MTS, MPG and 3GP, and later versions add MXF and DV among others.

Video by Zaweba is free software that runs offline on Windows, with no account, so footage goes from the card to your own drive and nowhere else.