Play Memories Home Software Alternative

[zodybo]

Hi All. I have a Sony Alpha 6000 and I am downloading my pictures directly from the camera to my Mac computer using the Play Memories Home software. I find the software very slow and my computer occasionally freezes during the downloads.

I was wondering if anyone is using other software to download there pictures or if maybe I am doing something wrong using this software.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[sonofanative]

I gave up on sony making the Play Memories Mac friendly, I use Lightroom to download and Do my basic corrections from there then Photoshop

[LiveShots]

You can just camera using the cable and import into the Photos app. The Capture One app could also be used and it has the option to edit the RAW photos too. Cable upload will usually be faster than using a wifi connection.

[Al Pha]

Hi All. I have a Sony Alpha 6000 and I am downloading my pictures directly from the camera to my Mac computer using the Play Memories Home software. I find the software very slow and my computer occasionally freezes during the downloads.

I was wondering if anyone is using other software to download there pictures or if maybe I am doing something wrong using this software.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

I just put the SD card in my Mac and use Image Capture to import. Of course if you have Adobe's Lightroom or Bridge you can use either of them to auto-import when you insert your SD card.

[cuums]

Love the camera (A7s), hate the software. Playmemories has been nothing but trouble for me (on 3 different computers). At the moment, on Windows 10, it refuses to start. Clicking the icon does nothing - no error massages, nothing. Reinstalling etc. does not help. I can't believe a big company like Sony could make such rubbish software.

When I had Playmemories working, I could get home, go into the kitchen, start the Wifi download to the computer, make a coffee and by the time I went into the home office, my photos were on the PC, ready to play with. Brilliant! Now however, I have to download the images from the camera to the computer by plugging in the USB cable and using Windows explorer. First world problem, maybe, but I'd really love to find an alternative program that supports WiFi download from the camera.

I feel your pain!

cheers

Peter

[NASA]

I have the same issue on Windows.

[ForrestMc]

True, the Sony PlayMemories is difficult to operate if everything isn't just right, eg., having to run Internet Explorer to communicate and download updates. I recently couldn't get the latest version of Smart Remote Control and pulled my hair out trying to figure out why. Once Windows 10 was added as a compatible OS by Sony I knuckled down to get the SRC (thank you BrianSmith youtubes!). I needed to update the a6000 firmware and the Remote Control app. Now Smart Remote Control works great thru the iPad or Galaxy s6. I am not a Sony software fanboy but I do enjoy the a6000.

[cuums]

Sorry for the late update on this topic, but I MAY have found an alternative to Playmemories for wifi import from a Sony camera to a PC. It's called airnef. Once I got it set up, it works reliably (so far!) and gives considerably faster transfer speed than Playmemories. Airnef, as the name implies, was originally written for Nikon cameras but has been expanded for other brands like Sony and Canon.

Advantages: 

1. It works. (one up on PM)

2. It's free. (equal to PM)

3. It's fast. (one up on PM)

Disadvantages:

1. Not entirely straightforward to set up (though anyone with a smattering of tech knowledge will be OK). I managed it!

2. I haven't found a way to get airnef to place image files in dated folders. I just dump it into an "unsorted" folder and manually move stuff around.

3. You have to start airnef on the host PC and then start the transfer on the camera. (PM seems to run in the background and doesn't need action on the host PC). However, even this 2-step process is MUCH faster than waiting for all the negotiations that PM seems to need to start up.

Early days yet, but so far, so good. Happy to elaborate if anyone's interested.

cheers

Peter

[Iain Strachan]

Sorry for the late update on this topic, but I MAY have found an alternative to Playmemories for wifi import from a Sony camera to a PC. It's called airnef. Once I got it set up, it works reliably (so far!) and gives considerably faster transfer speed than Playmemories. Airnef, as the name implies, was originally written for Nikon cameras but has been expanded for other brands like Sony and Canon.

Advantages: 

1. It works. (one up on PM)

2. It's free. (equal to PM)

3. It's fast. (one up on PM)

Disadvantages:

1. Not entirely straightforward to set up (though anyone with a smattering of tech knowledge will be OK). I managed it!

2. I haven't found a way to get airnef to place image files in dated folders. I just dump it into an "unsorted" folder and manually move stuff around.

3. You have to start airnef on the host PC and then start the transfer on the camera. (PM seems to run in the background and doesn't need action on the host PC). However, even this 2-step process is MUCH faster than waiting for all the negotiations that PM seems to need to start up.

Early days yet, but so far, so good. Happy to elaborate if anyone's interested.

cheers

Peter

Thanks so much for this steer.  I was literally going mad struggling with the many faults of Play Memories.  Not just the slowness when preparing to copy, but the many bugs.  It crashes frequently saying the browser has crashed, and the really annoying bug is if you try and set the default destination directory to a folder that is not on the C: drive.  My C: drive is an SSD and I don't use it for data, which is my F: drive.  However, if you choose a folder on the F: drive as the destination it simply creates the same path on the C: drive!  Play Memories Home is an abomination, and has caused me to utter more bad language than just about any program I can remember.

 

However, the instructions for airnef are so precise and careful that it may be self defeating, because it shows you how to set the camera up so that it auto-mounts the camera as a drive on the computer.  You have to disable that for airnef to work.  But if you leave it on and then uninstall Play Memories, you can just use the camera as an external drive.  I have yet to see if this will work with Lightroom auto-import - but if it does, then things couldn't be simpler if you use lightroom.  Just fire up lightroom and press "Send to Computer".  The only downsides are (a) according to airnef, the transfer of files via windows is a bit error prone and slow, and ( I think the LR auto-import deletes the files from the watched folder, so if you want to retain the files as a back up on the card this wouldn't be the best option.  Currently I'm using airnef to copy to a destination folder that is set to the Lightroom auto-import folder and that works pretty well.