Recently in AVCHD Category

"I am considering buying a Lumix DMC-FT1. I want to be able to still use Movie Maker on Windows. Will I be able to do so with AVCHD-Lite which the camera records video in?"

AVCHD-Lite, which is a subset of the AVCHD format popularized by hard disk camcorders from Sony, Panasonic, and Canon, uses h.264 video coupled with AAC audio for recording movies. Neither of these two codecs is directly supported by Windows Movie Maker in either Windows XP or Windows Vista. There are 3rd-party solutions that work with varying degrees of success in allowing you to work with AVCHD video in both versions of Movie Maker, but for the most part you are safer in assuming AVCHD and AVCHD-Lite will not work with either the XP or Vista versions of Movie Maker. If you are willing to convert the files to WMV or MPEG-2 before editing, you have more options, but generally speaking if you need to convert the AVCHD video before editing, you are better off starting with an editing program designed to edit AVCHD. You have several choices you can make as alternative editors.

"What is the difference between AVCHD and AVCHD Lite?"

As if things weren't confusing enough in the video recording world, the AVCHD video codec used by hard drive recording high definition cameras got a little more confusing with the AVCHD Lite "standard" added to the mix by Panasonic.

"When I try to play m2ts files they cannot open and I have to right-click, browse for a program, and select Windows Media Player. When I do this the m2ts file plays only the video portion but not the audio portion. I have two questions:

Q2) What causes m2ts file to play only the video and not the audio?"

"I just bought a Canon HF100 and want to get a new computer. I have always used PCs but am considering a Mac. I have spent days online researching the two options and cannot make up my mind. It seems that the Mac and PC options are both very slow and difficult. I want to record home video on HF100, burn raw AVCHD to standard DVD for permanent backup, do some editing and then burn to standard DVD in 1080 to watch on my PS3 without any noticeable degradation. Based on the simple things I want to do with my new camcorder, what do you suggest I buy and what steps should I follow to get 1080 to
standard DVD for PS3."

There's really no right answer here, both Mac and PC solutions will get you the result you want. AVCHD video files are more complex to edit than the tape HDV format and will take longer to work with as a result. Here's some suggestions to help narrow down your choice:

"Is there any way to play the movies from my AVCHD Camcorder in Windows Media Player? I keeps saying something about not finding a codec."

You can play AVCHD and other AVC h.264 files in Windows Media Player, but in order to do so you must purchase some additional software first. Windows Media Player supports many file formats through third-party solutions, AVCHD happens to be one of these that isn't supported as part of the core application.

"I have a Sony AVCHD camcorder. iMovie doesn't recognize the camcorder files. How can I edit the files on my AVCHD camcorder with my Mac?"

AVCHD support has been inconsistent for both Mac and Windows users. The format varies slightly depending on whether your camera is from Sony, Panasonic, or Canon. For Mac users, software support varies depending on which versions of iMovie, Final Cut Express, or Final Cut Pro you happen to be running. I personally prefer Final Cut Express to iMovie for editing on a Mac, but the correct version of either will work.

Jash writes, "I wish to convert M2TS / AVCHD files to an alternative format to send to people without the HDD software that comes with my Panasonic HDC-SD1. Is there a tool that will do this as most information is based around editing the files not converting them?"

At the moment, the best tools for converting files created using either the Panasonic or Sony AVCHD camcorders are the same tools used for editing the M2TS files. My personal preference is to use Sony Vegas for converting the files from AVCHD to whatever other format you want to work with, specifically because the interface makes it simple to either save the movie to a second format or do some additional processing if you want to crop the 16:9 video to 4:3 for standard definition conversion. Pinnacle Studio will also do something similar, but I like the Sony output configuration better.

Steve writes, "I have recently purchased a Sony HDR-SR8E with USB2 input/output. I have just purchased Pinnacle Studio v11 Plus (Ultimate). I cannot get Pinnacle to see the camcorder as a capture device, nor will it import the m2ts files generated by the camcorder. Any advice on how to resolve this so that I can maintain the 1080i (AVCHD) output would be appreciated."

It seems that some of the AVCHD files are more compatible than others with various video editing applications. After struggling with this new format for months, most of the kinks are worked out, but there are still steps you can take to get better results. One method I've found to be almost fool-proof is to take the Sony software that ships with these camcorders out of the mix completely.

The new hard disk based camcorders don't need fancy software in order to work with the files on the disk. You can simply mount the video camera as a hard drive using a USB cable. Browse to the camera in Windows Explorer under My Computer and find the files with .MTS extension on the camera.

After locating the correct directory, copy the .MTS files to your hard drive. Then go back to Pinnacle Studio (or any other video editing app that supports AVCHD) and import the .MTS files.

One additional step may be required for everything to work smoothly - depending on what mode you used for recording audio in your video, you may have multichannel surround sound audio in your file, which doesn't work well with some applications. To get around this, install freeware app AC3Filter, which down-mixes the multichannel audio to stereo.

"My AVCHD camcorder records videos with the extension M2TS. How can I play these M2TS files on my computer?"

Each of the AVCHD camcorders ships with software designed to playback the files on your computer. Sony's HDR-SR1 and the newer HDR-SR5 both record video in the AVCHD format and ship with the Picture Motion Browser, which plays back AVCHD files on most computers. If you purchased one of the Panasonic AVCHD camcorders, the included HD Writer should allow you to playback video recorded with your camcorder.

The AVCHD format used in some of the Sony hard drive and DVD camcorders, as well as in a few Panasonic camcorders, has been my video editing albatross. I bought the Sony HDR-SR1 back in January only to discover nothing existed to edit the files. About a week after buying the camera, I figured out a hack for editing AVCHD files using VirtualDub and a codec that ships with PowerDVD Ultra, but that solution was both inelegant and prone to numerous headaches. Many months later, software vendors are finally catching up with support for the AVCHD format. Nero 7 Ultra Edition ENHANCED imports the AVCHD .mt2s files into Nero Vison for editing, although I still find that to be a clunky editor. Of the solutions I've tested, Pinnacle Studio is currently the front runner for AVCHD editing because it handles the files like a champ while also supporting all the nifty features for full fledged editing.

One of the things I like most about the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive is portability. I can connect it to my Xbox 360 or I can plug it in to a PC elsewhere in the house. The only tricky part is figuring out all the right pieces to making HD-DVD playback work on your PC. Windows XP doesn't currently support HD-DVD playback without finding a hacked driver for the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive, so if you want HD-DVD playback, moving to Windows Vista is your best option.

The software part of the equation is easy. Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra supports both HD-DVD and Blu-ray playback in the same download. It has the bonus of solving a number of problems related to using the new AVCHD camcorder format.

Recording video straight to hard drive using an AVCHD camcorder should speed up your video editing workflow. It is not without some frustration in the editing process. Two years after the first AVCHD camcorder hit the market, a handful of tools now work well for editing AVCHD files created with Sony's camcorders and the AVCHD camcorders from Panasonic. I strongly recommend using:
either Pinnacle Studio Ultimate or Sony Vegas

The Sony Vegas option probably makes the most sense considering many of the AVCHD camcorders are made by Sony. Nero Ultra Edition ENHANCED is an additional solution for editing the AVCHD files, however, I find other aspects of Nero frustrating and don't use it for my own editing needs. Pinnacle wins on ease of use, but it's more limiting than Vegas if you're willing to learn the interface.

Back when webcams first came on the scene, if you had a choice between a CMOS based cam or a CCD based cam, I always recommended the CCD cam because images were simply better. CMOS was the cheap alternative and it often produced these weird blocks in images when it didn't put the image data together correctly. Apparently some things never change. The new Sony HDR-SR1 High Definition camcorder uses a CMOS sensor to collect image data instead of a CCD, presumably to keep the cost down. When the camcorder takes good pictures, it takes great pictures. When the CMOS sensor gets confused, it resorts to the blocky badness just like its much cheaper CMOS webcam cousins. Based on that frustration alone, I'm highly inclined to swap my HDR-SR1 for the Panasonic HDC-SD1 when it ships. Panasonic is sticking with 3CCDs while recording to the same AVCHD format used in the HDR-SR1.

For an example of what I'm referring to, here's a blocky headshot of Elizabeth Del Sol taken with the HDR-SR1. Yes, the lighting in the shot is lousy, but it was taken in the neon-lit valet parking area of the Sahara casino, so I didn't have any control over the environment.

Here's a frame two frames earlier in the footage where Miss Del Sol looks normal.

For what it's worth, this problem seems to occur less when there's better lighting and when the camera isn't compensating as much for motion, but that's still a lousy image experience. Using a camera with CCDs will still produce bad images in less than perfect conditions, but at least your shots don't look like your trying for one of those jumbled image puzzles on every other frame.