Can't Find Footage

[Chase Sirota]

Okay. Major frustrating moment right now. I have had my a7iii for about 8 months now, and we've been going strong without any issues. Today, however, I was going to dump footage from a project that I shot a couple of days ago, and there was none on the SD card. Before you ask, yes, I'm sure that I hit record; there were a few times during the shoot where I went back to watch clips over before continuing to the next shot. I tried checking the second SD card. Only footage from a previous shoot on a different project. I even tried using a USB-C cable to transfer files instead of a direct SD card transfer(idk, I was just trying to see if something would work). Nothing. And then, the mother of all "what the f---'s" happened. I opened the camera just to confirm that the footage was indeed viewable, and when I click to view the gallery, it comes up with a "Cannot Display" error message. AGHAGHAGHGA. I have this project due in the not too distant future, and I have a group of college students to work with. They will not be happy if we have to shoot again, and frankly, neither will I. Somebody please tell me that I've done something horribly stupid and that there's an easy fix for my problem. I'm about to scream. 

[VTC]

Check size of AVCHD file. Empty it's about 600kb. Had mine mysteriously change record type from mp4 to AVCHD once. Saw in camera but not in the folder where mp4 files live because they were hidden inside the AVCHD folder. Show package contents (Mac) gets inside the container/folder. Take files from there.

Cannot display image error pops up when I change MP4 to mp4 on the card so I know which files I transferred to computer but don't wan't to delete off card just yet. Image file database won't recognize the renamed files but they're still viable.

Edited November 22, 2019 by VTC