Unable to upload videos using Smugmug App

Jimson

Aloha!

I'm trying to set up a system that will allow me to backup photos and videos to my Smugmug Portfolio site while traveling. I'm using an app called USB Media Explorer to transfer photos (JPEG) and videos (MOV) from SD and micro SD cards (shot with my Olympus EM1 MK II and DJI Mavic Pro) to a 128GB micro SD installed in my Lenovo Yoga 3 Plus tablet (expansion memory). I'm then using the Smugmug App (v3.0.10.20170424) to try to upload from the tablet's internal micro SD to a gallery on my Smugmug account. It works fine for photos, but the app isn't finding any videos.

Hitting the "upload" button in the app only gives me a "select photos" option, and none of my videos are displayed. I can't find any option to switch to a "select videos" mode, or select the source folder or directory.

I'm not entirely sure how the android filesystem works. Using the USB Media Explorer file manager I've tried importing photos and videos into the following directories:

/storage/emulated/0/DCIM
/storage/emulated/0/Pictures
/storage/emulated/0/Movies

In no case will the Smugmug app recognize the videos. It seems to recognize the photos in every case.

I am able to upload both photos and videos from the tablet using the built in Chrome browser, which is good, but I was hoping to use the app for a more streamlined experience.

I'd greatly appreciate it if anyone could help. The last time I went on a trip our house was burglarized and my camera/drone bag (with SD cards still inside) was stolen the day after we got back, so I lost all my photos from that trip. With the drone there's always a chance of your drone going down, and loosing all the high res originals on the card as well, making field backups especially important.

Also, if anyone can suggest a third party uploader app that has built in OTG reading capability that'd be much appreciated. I'd love to skip the intermediate step of transferring photos and videos to the SD card installed in the tablet and go straight from the camera memory card to the internet.

I tried an app called PhotoSync which seemed may offer this capability, but haven't had any luck with it recognizing photos or videos on either the camera memory card or the installed expansion memory card in the tablet.

Thanks for your help!

Jimson

Sorry, correction, PhotosSync will recognize photos copied to the tablet's expansion memory but does not recognize videos copied to the expansion memory or anything on SD cards in the SD reader.

leftquark

Unfortunately Android does not natively support the .mov video format (you can see a list of available formats here: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/media/media-formats.html ). Android does support the .mp4 format, which the Mavic can be set to. You'd need to first convert the .mov files into an Android compatible format and then you should be able to upload them to SmugMug.

Within the SmugMug Android app, photos and videos are allowed, however the Android device is controlling which files are videos and which aren't. Because Android doesn't recognize this as a video, we aren't able to import it. The web browser works because SmugMug does accept .mov files and Chrome is looking at all file types (not just photos or videos).

Going forward you could try setting the Drone/Camera to record in another format, or see if you can convert the videos first (though I realize that adds an extra step).

Jimson

Thanks a bunch leftquark! I had no idea android doesnt support MOVs! That explains it. I'll look into the quality of MP4 output from my cameras and if acceptable, may just shoot that instead.

When uploading in chrome in android there doesn't appear to be a batch or "select all" option. Instead I'm having to select a single file, hit upload, then repeat. Am I simply missing something, or is a "select all" type option not supported in chrome on android?

Finally, would you happen to know if the SmugMug iOS App can upload photos and videos directly off an SD card inserted in an iPhone or iPad via Apple's "lightning to SD card camera reader", or if photos/videos must be imported to the device's camera roll first? Additionally, do you know of any file format incompatibilities?

Thanks again!