Today i'm going to finally help you update your firmware for your sony camera on your mac
with no need to make friends with a pc user
so first of all if you work for sony and especially if you're one of the tech guys
can you please change the way we have to update your cameras there are so many
inconsistencies and problems with the uploader with the patches you create for the mac system
that it's just kind of laughable it just seems like a friday afternoon job given to the intern
who is probably just about to be fired but because it's friday and no one's about he never does now
we understand you have a system of upgrading the firmware on a camera and it needs to get all of
that data across to the camera so it kind of works without any failures whatsoever but if canon can
do it via a file on the sd card then why can't sony do it this would then scrap the need for
a program for every different operating system giving you the chance to finally fire that intern
without a guilty conscience the canon system is so simple and unless they've changed it even a
five-year-old could do it whereas with the sony uploader program and patch you need to have at
least brushed past a black hat hacker and gained some of their knowledge to be able to get this to
work on your computer and also the funny thing is that on the firmware update page for the a7siii
they've even put it in brackets on the mac firmware update mac big sur is not supported which
just seems like a bit of a cop-out they must have been getting so many emails complaining about it
but not enough to do anything about it so they just added this parenthesis to the title
so if you do work for sony or you know why this isn't possible please let me know in the comments
below and enlighten me as to why we can't have a firmware update happen through the sd card as
this would be a much simpler way for users and the users are ultimately your customers anyway that's
enough about me ranting about how bad this system is today i have a way of updating your firmware on
your camera and i know you a7s3 owners are keen to get the latest firmware to take advantage of that
s cinetone profile so i didn't figure this out but one of you guys did and it's so simple once
you hear it so thanks to luke price who did it this way and was kind enough to share it with me
on my mac firmware update patch video as i said it's a pretty simple and effective solution
but not so much long term you do have to download some software and you do need to keep registering
it with a different email every time you need a firmware update because today we're just
using that 14-day trial version obviously the other option is to pay for the software itself
but i think it's around about eighty dollars for this software now for your computer nerd you
probably already know about virtual machines and i'll try not to butcher this topic too much but
basically i'm going to set up a virtual machine on my mac install windows 10 on that virtual machine
then install the firmware updater program and then after that get my camera updated
now it seems complicated but it's not too bad at all in fact it was really simple for me to
do but it will take around about 30 to 40 minutes depending on your network speed and depending on
your computer processing power now i don't own the a7s3 even though i wish i did but i don't however
my a73 has an update available from 3.1 to 4.0 so i'll be doing it today with that camera now for
the a7s3 or any other sony camera that you might want to update follow these steps and then when
it comes to choosing the firmware just google your own camera model and it should come up at the top
of google well below the ads anyway i will try and link as many as possible in that description below
but these are always changing as they're updated so the first thing you need to do is download
the parallels trial software again i've left the link for this in the description below they make
it really easy to install and do walk you through the process i was actually really surprised at how
easy this was once your mac has downloaded the dmg file click on it to open it you might have to find
it in downloads but i'm using chrome so i just click on the file in the bottom left hand corner
next click on the big parallels logo in the pop-up window and this will start the installation
process click on open click on accept with the software license agreement put in your password
and then give parallels permissions by clicking ok then click on open security preferences click
on the padlock and put in your password or if you have one of those fingerprint touch pads and
it's programmed in use your fingerprint and then click allow now you can close system preferences
parallels will then open and ask for permissions click next and then ok click ok again ok once
again and then finish if you have any external drives it will ask for access to those as well
now when parallels has installed straight away it asks you if you want to install windows 10
so that's what you do you say yes to installing windows 10. it takes a while and will give you
an estimated time my machine said it was around about 25 minutes and that was about right for
the install but then my machine took a little bit longer to set up and start up windows 10.
it will then ask for access to the camera click ok and then for the microphone as well so click
ok again this is just so you can use all of these utilities and functions in windows the screen does
take ages to load and it will go blank from time to time but you just need to be patient parallels
will then build the operating system once windows has installed it will set up your user profile
and then go through the normal process you would do when you first set up a new operating system
now don't worry your mac is still there in the background this is just setting it up on
a virtual drive once it's installed and up and running it will say installation complete click
to continue so you basically click to continue and then you fill in your details for parallel
this is where you fill in your email instead of connecting with your social media accounts so
if you have a firmware update in the future you can either register again for the trial version
with a different email instead of it being linked to your social accounts in saying that parallels
does look like a really good program so i am tempted to buy this program but i'll see what
i think about it after the 14-day trial at this point it will expand the window and you just use
this as a pc in that window so open the internet explorer which is known as edge now and go to the
appropriate link for the camera that you have as i said earlier most are in the description below
but if you can't find it there just google it remember each firmware updater is specific to the
camera model so you do need to find the one that is for your camera as i said i'm updating the a7 3
so i'll go to the a7 3 link and then click on that link now remember this is for the
windows updater and not the mac updater you're running that virtual windows pc on your mac
so you need the windows software now you just go through the firmware update process as normal
next you need to click on the download button agree to everything and then it asks if you want
to register or sign in it's almost saying that there isn't a choice but there is if you scroll
to the bottom of this page it will give you a link to download without creating an account
so click on this and it will download the exe file once downloaded click on the open file in the
bottom left hand corner winzip will then extract this and open up the system software loader
once you've done this you need to turn your camera on so i'll get my a73 and i'll turn the camera on
make sure it has a full battery and select usb connection from the setup tab in the camera menu
and then set it to mass storage so on the older menus it's the yellow toolbox or briefcase one
and then on the a73 it's page four of seven obviously in the a7s3 it'll be different because
that has that new menu system but basically find usb connection and change this to mass storage
next you need to connect your camera up with your mac this can either be with the usbc
cable or the multi-port cable the usbc cable does seem to be quicker though when it's transferring
the firmware update to your camera now i have got my wife's power cable for her mac laptop
this works perfectly well but if you don't have this just use the cable that came with the camera
so i'll just plug that in and plug that in and then on the back of the camera it will say usb
mode and then once it's connected it will say mass storage on the back of your camera
parallels will then ask you if you want to connect it to your mac or your pc this is where you choose
pc it does say in the system software uploader that once it has found your camera click on next
mine hasn't found it but i'm going to click on next anyway and a lot of the times with this
system software uploader you do have to click to that next page for it to actually look out
for your camera and to find your camera you can see on the page that it says current version 3.10
and version after update version 4.00 then click next it will then go through the process
when it turns your camera off and on again parallels will ask if you want to retain
this as a windows connection just click yes and then it will install the new firmware on
your camera now this is the time to be patient again let it do its thing don't unplug anything
and just leave it let that progress bar work its way through until it says it's finished once done
it might say it's unable to connect don't worry about this just click ok and then click finish to
close the firmware updater the program in windows will close now you can disconnect your camera
and then all you want to do is go back into your menu and then check the version again on my a7 3
it's the yellow tab and it's all the way at the end so it's 7 out of seven but on the a7 s3 with
that new menu it will be different so there it says version 4.0 so it successfully uploaded
that new firmware i'll then close the windows 10 virtual machine and then i'll close parallel as
well because you don't need those anymore so you can see this is a much better way to update your
camera than going through my last mac firmware video where i had that patch at that time i
thought that was the only way to do it but luckily luke pointed us in the direction of this way to do
it which just seems a little bit more efficient and a lot quicker and a lot easier now let me
know how you got on in the comments below it'll be great to see that it's worked for you or if
you had any problems let me know about that as well and if you like this video click on this
one next or if you want to binge watch a load of my tutorials click down here and if you haven't
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you