For Sony XAVC, do I need to copy the whole memory card?

Probably a basic, silly question, but when I'm working with XAVC footage from my ZV-1, do I need to maintain the folder structure and copy over everything? I know with my Panasonic, when I was working with AVCHD footage I needed to do that and the clips would appear in the root folder (even though they were actually in a subfolder somewhere), but with XAVC, I still need to drill down into the folder where the clips actually are. That got me wondering if there's any reason to copy everything instead of just the video files. I do see there are also some XML files with metadata, so maybe there's still something needed there, just curious what all I actually need.

Yes. The general rule of thumb for every camera is to copy the memory card as is. Do not cherry-pick the files.

Just to be clear, is that literally the entire memory card, including the DCIM folder that only contains photos? Or just the PRIVATE folder or just the M4ROOT folder? I know the conventional wisdom is "everything," but that seems really excessive if the software doesn't even care about half of it.

Everything. Some software will not detect the "card" if folders or files are missing.

Hmm. The thing is, when I copy the entire contents, it still doesn't see it as a "card," just a bunch of folders and files. Exactly the same as if I just cherry pick. This was not the case with my Panasonic, as I said. Furthermore, the Sony doesn't need to split the files into 4 GB chunks, so I'm not sure what information is gained by copying all of the non-video files. I guess what I am saying is that I believe you that it is necessary for some cameras, but surely there is a software developer that could chime in or a manual someone could point to that indicates whether it is actually necessary for specific formats. It just seems like one of those holdover myths from when we had to format memory cards as FAT instead of exFAT that may or may not still be true.

Hmm. The thing is, when I copy the entire contents, it still doesn't see it as a "card," just a bunch of folders and files. Exactly the same as if I just cherry pick. This was not the case with my Panasonic, as I said. Furthermore, the Sony doesn't need to split the files into 4 GB chunks, so I'm not sure what information is gained by copying all of the non-video files. I guess what I am saying is that I believe you that it is necessary for some cameras, but surely there is a software developer that could chime in or a manual someone could point to that indicates whether it is actually necessary for specific formats. It just seems like one of those holdover myths from when we had to format memory cards as FAT instead of exFAT that may or may not still be true.

What doesn't see it as a "card"? Maybe it doesn't support Sony XAVC? You will need the folder structure when a clip spans 2 or more cards. Or embedded proxy. Or other metadata.

Yes, a lot of these folders may not be needed in order to play the video. But these files and folders take up KB of space.

If you just need the video then delete the rest. Just based on my experience some software does not see the proper structure of a clip or card without it being complete.

Resolve doesn't. It supports XAVC, as far as I can tell, because it plays the files just fine. It just sees it as a collection of folders and files rather than a singular "card." For my purposes, there can only be one card in the camera, so a single clip can't span multiple cards. I'm also not shooting proxies on the camera. For me, what it boils down to is that I am a very occasional video person, so I often don't remember to delete old files off the card. I'm also really OCD about folder structure and organization. So let's say I shoot a clip, copy over the entire structure, realize I forgot something and go out and shoot that, now I have to import the entire card again but all the folders have the same names, maybe I deleted the clip and now it has created a new clip that has the same name as the old one... it gets messy fast, IMO. I'd much rather copy over individual video files that I can rename so I know what they actually are. It's just bizarre to me the way video files seem to need to be handled for editing.

Just because a software works doesn't mean that it works to full capacity. Removing information from an SD card may mean that a software will then analyse a XAVC codec as a generic h.264 codec, if information is missing. Seems to me that Sony includes information on the SD card to help software read all the metadata as well. If you ever open a Sony card in Catalyst Browser ( Sony program ) you can see all kinds of information including the lens used, even what profile was used. ( slog2 or slog3 etc. ).

So it seems that giving people the advice that Resolve works just fine without that data is a little bit of an assumption. And the difference in size for storage is tiny.

Resolve doesn't. It supports XAVC, as far as I can tell, because it plays the files just fine. It just sees it as a collection of folders and files rather than a singular "card." For my purposes, there can only be one card in the camera, so a single clip can't span multiple cards. I'm also not shooting proxies on the camera. For me, what it boils down to is that I am a very occasional video person, so I often don't remember to delete old files off the card. I'm also really OCD about folder structure and organization. So let's say I shoot a clip, copy over the entire structure, realize I forgot something and go out and shoot that, now I have to import the entire card again but all the folders have the same names, maybe I deleted the clip and now it has created a new clip that has the same name as the old one... it gets messy fast, IMO. I'd much rather copy over individual video files that I can rename so I know what they actually are. It's just bizarre to me the way video files seem to need to be handled for editing.

I hear you. My Sony PXW-X70 creates XAVC-L files wrapped in an mxf container and stored in an elaborate, nested folder structure on the card. Media Composer understands this structure and only shows me the clips to work with, not all the peripheral folders and metadata files. I was hoping that Resolve would do the same but it doesn't as far as I can tell.

I hear you. My Sony PXW-X70 creates XAVC-L files wrapped in an mxf container and stored in an elaborate, nested folder structure on the card. Media Composer understands this structure and only shows me the clips to work with, not all the peripheral folders and metadata files. I was hoping that Resolve would do the same but it doesn't as far as I can tell.

As far as I can tell, if you're shooting XAVC, the only folder that has relevant metadata is the M4ROOT folder. The main M4ROOT folder as well as the CLIP folder within it both have XML files with data about the clips, but nothing above that, hidden or otherwise, has anything to do with the video files as far as I can tell. I know that AVCHD requires the parent PRIVATE folder to be present to properly understand the structure, but maybe that is not the case with XAVC. That is why I am here asking if anyone knows for sure. Someone coded the folder structure and someone coded Resolve, there must be a definitive answer somewhere. It seems to me that we mostly have people saying that someone once told them to copy everything and so now they say that and so on and so on, but I suspect none of these people are particularly familiar with coding. No offense meant to anyone, this is also the same thing I have heard over the years, it just seems to have no real basis in fact but rather someone at some point who didn't understand how it works just started telling people to do it and so we do.

Edit: With some additional searching, others have suggested that with XAVC-S specifically, you really don't need to copy more than just the video files. Maybe that is why I am not noticing any real difference.

For XAVC-L (on my Sony) the media (MXF) files are found here on the card:

CARD:\PRIVATE\XDROOT\Clip

My MP4ROOT\Clip folder is empty.

I have seen no difference using the MXF files directly, rather than keeping the folder structure when using Resolve (there isn't any difference - Resolve does not acknowledge the metadata for this particular camera). However, with Media Composer, the file hierarchy can be useful (but not necessary in MC, either).

My camera doesn't do spanned files (there is no practical file length limit for the XAVC-L format recorded by the camera) so my media (MXF) can stand on its own. Other formats have different requirements.

I got into the habit of copying my entire card to my server because it didn't cost me anything with Media Composer (I only ever pointed MC to the top-level) but with Resolve that may change. I haven't decided.

Some Sonys do spanning of clips on smaller cards, IIRC under 32 GB. For those you'll need the whole structure.
On larger ones I never had trouble just copying the "CLIPS" folder.