Hi,

AVCHD camcorders seem to get momentum. Editting and authoring will not be my immediate goal, not until I can share the authored discs to at least 50% of the people, but capturing and archiving is.

So, this is my attempt at gathering information on the players that can play the raw materials copied straight from the SDHC using a card reader. Please provide:

- Camera model.
- Player model (and software version if available).
- Your experience (anything you want to add).

I, for one, will rely on your experience to make the decision on purchasing a player some day in the near future.

Thanks,
tuquet

You should also ask for computer hardware (PC vs MAC), CPU and video card, as it is quite relevant.

Camcorder: SR1 and SR11
Hardware: All PCs, AMD Phenom/Intel Q6600, NVidia 8800GTS/ATI2650
Software:
1. Sony PMB 1.1, PMB 3.0 ($0): Mediocre playback quality (half res/framerate), low CPU perf reqs.
2. FFDShow H.264 update + AC3Filter + WMP ($0): Choked after a few frames.
3. VideoLan VLC (last version) ($0): Garbled output, choked just like #2.
4. CoreAVC + AC3Filter + WMP ($15): Good playback quality, medium CPU perf reqs.
5. Nero 7 Ultra ($100): Jumpy playback, high CPU perf reqs.
6. PowerDVD 7.3 bluray edition (free with bluray drive): Best playback quality, low CPU perf reqs (favorite so far).
7. Mirilis Oxygen (Beta4 Lite) ($0): Good playback quality for SR1 (SR11 has A/V sync issues), medium CPU perf reqs.

Thanks for the information but that was a little overkill for my quest. I (and assume many more) am still on hold on editting and authoring. I just want to simply copy the card data 4GB => single layer DVD, 8GB => double layer DVD to archive. What I am looking for is the players (I heard that the PS3 can) that can play these. Perhaps some can play with different structure? Say I want to buy a Bluray player, I would want the one that I can view my raw footage.

According the this thread (http://dvinfo.net/conf/archive/index.php/t-89739.html) the PS3 can play raw M2TS or MTS files. Guessing you can take the SD card straight from the camera into the PS3 and view. I can't confirm this because I don't own a PS3. I do wish my xbox360 could do this.

So you're requesting which standalone consumer electronics that can playback AVCHD. The only ones supporting that format are bluray players. I don't own one of those, but I'm planning to purchase a PS3 before the end of the year to fill that need.

PS3.

Working with my HDR-SR12.

So you're requesting which standalone consumer electronics that can playback AVCHD. The only ones supporting that format are bluray players. I don't own one of those, but I'm planning to purchase a PS3 before the end of the year to fill that need.
Not all Blu-ray players are able to play original AVCHD content, without ANY modifications. My player does not, I need to patch directory structure to comply with Blu-ray standard.

EDIT: If anyone owns an AVCHD camcorder that records onto a miniDVD, can you list the directory structure of the disk? Does it contain PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV or does it contain directly BDMV ?

Not all Blu-ray players are able to play original AVCHD content, without ANY modifications. My player does not, I need to patch directory structure to comply with Blu-ray standard.
Could you provide the player model and how you patched? Yes, this is the kind of information I am hoping to gather at this moment.

Could you provide the player model and how you patched? Yes, this is the kind of information I am hoping to gather at this moment.
I posted the link to my article so many times I thought everyone is sick of it now :) Anyway, here it goes: http://www.elurauser.com/articles/avchd_to_bluray.jsp

Thanks.

I like to stay in the house on new technology so I bought a Sony Camcorder HVR SR12 and I use Sony Vegas Pro 8b with DVDA but current DVDA is 4.5. V 5 will soon be out and is a free upgrade that will support the AVCHD burn to DVD-r or BluRay blanks.
Presently the Sony PMB software ( comes free with the SR12 )will allow you to burn a DVD-R or Blu Ray blank with limited menu based structure for BluRay disk Player playback in full 1080 x 1920 DD5.1 It looks syunning and you'll get 34 minutes to a DVD-r 4.7 Gb. My player is a BluRay Samsung BD1400. It fires right up on the disks I burn and plays with stunning quality and DD5.1 sound. If shopping around, be sure the player supports AVCHD. It should because some recent movies are AVCHD, like AVP reqiem. I heard some of the earlier players didn't support AVCHD. MIne has the logo right on the carton.
Editing in Vegas 8b is pretty good on a really fast machine so I've heard but I have an older Pentium so while it edits OK, you can't do real time previews of the timeline without stuttering. VASST makes a proxy software plugin for Vegas for about $50 that will take your AVCHD clips and proxy them as SD clips for editing. This takes rendering time and hard drive space but allows you to edit in real time. Once the edit is done you use the proxy software to auto replace the original AVCHD files and render. Once that is done burn it to DVD with either PMB or DVDA 5.0 when it comes out.

The work flow works fine and I have it down now. Not as easy as SD editing but it works.

Re Final Cut Studio 2 on a Mac- I tested this this morning and it is a no go. FCP Studio 2, I believe their latest version is choking on the AVCHD files as unrecognizable. If I rerender in Vegas using a Main concepts codec I can get the files to load in FC Studio but that is about it. Then it crashed my Mac. Mac head expert and good friend told me I need more ram! That is why it crashed. The AVCHD is a problem as it doesn't work with that format yet. So, my advice based on this is stay away from the Mac editing for now.

I also tried an HG 10 Canon. It is much lower price than the Sony SR12. Nice camera but it can only store still pictures to the SDHC card which is a mini SD. No video. The Sony SR12 allows you to store pictures or video to either the mem stick or hard drive. I hasve done both with no problem but I had to buy a cheap card adapter to put the stick in my laptop. It wasn't that expensive.

If shopping around, be sure the player supports AVCHD. It should because some recent movies are AVCHD, like AVP reqiem. I heard some of the earlier players didn't support AVCHD. MIne has the logo right on the carton.
Movies are not in AVCHD, they are in AVC, and files have Blu-ray structure. Camcorder records with the same AVC codec, but directory structure is different. Older players do not understand AVCHD directory structure, but AVC encoding itself is no problem. This is what I am doing for my player, I convert AVCHD directory and file names into proper Blu-ray names, very similar but not the same. Why Sony and Panasonic could not have the same names across camcorders and players? Were they afraid calling their AVC camcorders simply Blu-ray camcorders? Did they want to keep HD DVD owners calm? Stupid. Now we have to work around their pure marketing -- not technical -- decisions.

Movies are not in AVCHD, they are in AVC, and files have Blu-ray structure. Camcorder records with the same AVC codec, but directory structure is different. Older players do not understand AVCHD directory structure, but AVC encoding itself is no problem. This is what I am doing for my player, I convert AVCHD directory and file names into proper Blu-ray names, very similar but not the same. Why Sony and Panasonic could not have the same names across camcorders and players? Were they afraid calling their AVC camcorders simply Blu-ray camcorders? Did they want to keep HD DVD owners calm? Stupid. Now we have to work around their pure marketing -- not technical -- decisions. I think they weren't sure if they would win. Who would buy an HD-DVD camcorder now?

AVCHD does not require a BR player. If I stay within the Pany HD Writer software, I can do cuts-only editing and burn AVCHD discs that will play on BR as well as the burner that came bundled with my Pany SD5. I can connect the burner to the SD5 and play through the camera's HDMI port, or I can copy back to SD card and play back from that. Either way it looks great!

Dave

AVCHD does not require a BR player. If I stay within the Pany HD Writer software, I can do cuts-only editing and burn AVCHD discs that will play on BR as well as the burner that came bundled with my Pany SD5. I can connect the burner to the SD5 and play through the camera's HDMI port, or I can copy back to SD card and play back from that. Either way it looks great!
To me this reads like AVCHD requires a Blu-ray player if you don't have the burner neither want to watch video off the camera neither have a TV that can play video off the card.

The software will allow you to copy from DVD to SD card. You can then play back with just the camera to HDTV.

Dave

AVCHD does not require a BR player. If I stay within the Pany HD Writer software, I can do cuts-only editing and burn AVCHD discs that will play on BR as well as the burner that came bundled with my Pany SD5. I can connect the burner to the SD5 and play through the camera's HDMI port, or I can copy back to SD card and play back from that. Either way it looks great!

Dave

For me, it would be the DW-100, but I would rather avoid that route. I will eventually upgrade the PC and get the proper software to make discs, just not now.