How compatible is AVCHD format?

[Red Squirrel]

My work is planing on buying a camcorder for general use and the one they have in mind records in AVCHD format. Never heard of it. How easy is that format to work with, as far as editing programs, and what not?

For example sometimes they want us to put something on the intranet which requires to use an avi to flash converter.

So basically, how easy is it to convert this to mpeg or avi? I just want to make sure it's a format that is easy to work with.

This is the camera:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=165082&Sku=C930-2018

 

[SirMaster]

AVCHD is just a name for a format that uses MPEG-4 video (H.264) and either AC3 (Dolby Digital) or linear PCM audio. It's really more of a container.

It's just as easy to work with as any codec.

 

[criccio]

AVCHD is just a container as mentioned above. The camera records in MPEG-4.

 

[Zepher]

Depending on your editing hardware and software, it can be a very sluggish format to edit with.
When it first came out a few years ago, the first thing you did to the files were transcode them to an intermediary format, like Cineform AVI or Matrox AVI.

Most consumer HD cameras record in AVCHD and most of the current crop of editing programs should have native support for it.

What do you have for hardware and software?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Good to know, so we'll probably go with that then. Hardware here is low end, 5-7 years old, software really depends, I usually just google for something. Most of the time they just want a video to go on the intranet so I usually use a avi to flv tool, I'm sure there are some that take mpeg too. Nothing too intense. Just want to make sure this is a format that is workable and is not like .mov where it's hard to find tools that support it.

 

[Jerome36]

I have a Canon VIXIA HF100 and it records in AVCHD (file extension .m2ts). It came with some Windows software, including a player, but Windows Media Player can play the videos just fine, and I can open and edit the video just fine with the latest version of Windows Live Movie Maker (I don't think previous versions supported the format). One thing I'll mention is that on an older OS like Windows XP, you will need at least a dual core CPU, as the playback is processor intensive. My videos were choppy on my old desktop (single core AMD Athlon 3200+ with Windows XP), and it taxed my CPU at 100%. When I put Windows 7 on the same machine it played super smooth because the Window 7 version of WMP has GPU support and my graphics card was decent.

Now, when it comes to my MacBook Pro, I can't play the files natively, with the software included with OS X. If I plug the camera in iMove will take the photos and convert them to QuickTime format, during the import process, but otherwise it will not play. Of course you can get free software, like Handbrake, for Windows, OS X or Linux, and it will re-encode the video just fine. Plus I believe VLC will also give you playback capabilities for the Mac, Windows, etc., but Windows should play things just fine anyway.