You are probably reading this page because you bought a brand new high definition video recorder (HD camcorder) and your memory has run out so you’ve decided to copy the video footage to your computer or to a DVD and that’s where you ran into some difficulty. What you need is a AVCHD player to play your video footage and to record it onto DVD or Blu-ray. Unfortunately there aren’t that many AVCHD players out there and most AVCHD players that are bundeled with HD camcorders are inadequite or should we say rubbish. If you’re simply looking for a free AVCHD player, look no further! (click on the free AVCHD player link in the previous sentence to go to a list of AVCHD players)
But let’s not jump the gun. What is AVCHD and why is my camcorder using it? Is AVCHD a format that only my camcorder uses and now I’m stuck with it?
I’ll start by setteling the nerves. DON’T worry. Whether you bought a Sony Handycam, Canon Vixia, Panasonic or any other brand chances are very good that it will be recording AVCHD video. AVCHD video recording format is a variant of the H.264 used in Blu-ray. It’s basically a video compression format, much what .jpg is for photos and it’s pretty standard although very new. Luckily, all the big players like Sony, Canon and Panasonic have opted for the AVCHD video format meaning we’ll see a lot of development for software like AVCHD players and AVCHD editors in the next few years. As we all know Blu-ray won the “Next Generation Player” battle against HD-DVD, AVCHD works on Blu-ray and is thus compatible with Blu-ray players like the Sony playstation 3 or PS3.
It’s good to know you’ve made the right choice of HD camcorder, but the question on your mind is still how on earth do you watch these on your HD television (HD tv) or on your computer. The HD camcorders are easiest to use if you plug them directly into an HDTV via HDMI. HDMI is a cable, much like a USB cable which comes with some HD camcorders like the Canon Vixia but not with all HD cameras like most Sony Handycam. Luckily HDMI cables are not expensive and can be bought from Amazon or any other online store. All HD camcorders have HDMI output, so it’s easy to just connect that camcorder to your HDTV and use the supplied remote. In fact, it feels like this is what the camcorder companies would prefer you to do, because the editing software included with every one of the camcorders is almost unusable. That’s what this site is all about, the AVCHD players that we can use as substitutes to what we’ve been given when buying our HD Camcorders. There are a number of AVCHD players on the market, some are free, some are not, all have their own advantages and disadvantages. We’ve reviewed them to make choosing your AVCHD player easy. Feel free to leave comments on any AVCHD player and on any of our pages.
There is a lot of discussion regarding which is the best format for digital video cameras. The HDV tape format remains a popular choice, mostly because of low cost and long record times. In the future however, AVCHD will be the format of choice for consumers and eventually small independent film makers.
A lot of HD camera users that were pro HD-DVD made a big deal that you could burn HD material onto a standard DVD and it would play on an HD-DVD player. This was absolutely true, problem is that you can’t get HD-DVD players anymore or HD-DVD’s for that matter. Blu-ray owners need not feel left out, because you can burn AVCHD video to a standard DVD using Nero and play it in most Blu-ray players. The easiest route for compatibility would be using the old trusted Playstation 3 (PS3) which has a built in AVCHD player. The PS3 is, firmware upgradeable, and is currently thought of as the best Blu-ray player on the market considering you’re getting a blu-ray player and gaming console for the price of either of the two. To burn your AVCHD movie to a standard DVD open (version 5 and up), Click “Make DVD”, and then choose AVCHD DVD. Select your AVCHD video files, and Nero will do the rest. Depending on material, you can expect a maximum of 25 minutes on standard DVD. Because of the fact that the AVCHD movies need to be rendered by Nero, the process is time consuming but yields good results.
So, if you’re a passionate HDV camcorder user who was waiting for enough time to pass to switch over to AVCHD, now is the time. Although the AVCHD format is still relatively new there aremore than enough Free AVCHD player, AVCHD editor and AVCHD software to get you going.
It is possible to play AVCHD video in Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center. However, neither WMP nor WMC supports AVCHD natively and needs additional codec’s installed to be able to handle AVCHD video.
Luckily it’s not difficult to Add AVCHD/M2TS Support to Windows Media Player 11 and Windows Media Center. The good news is that Windows 7 will have native support for AVCHD/M2TS videos. In the meantime we’ve found a patch that will associate AVCHD/M2TS files with WMP and WMC. Please note that you use this patch entirely at your own risk and please don’t try using this without making a backup of your registry or if you’re a novice.
The registry patch ties M2TS files (AVCHD files) into either Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center allowing them to be associated with this file type. The registry edit will also permit streaming AVCHD files from Windows Media Player 11 to your Playstation 3 (PS3).
Be aware that M2TS files will only be playable in WMP/WMC with latest versions of ffdshow-tryouts and Haali media splitter. Alternatively you could also download the latest version of the K Lite Codec Pack (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Codec_Pack.htm) (freeware) which allows for very smooth playback on even low spec PC’s using players like WMP and VLC.
If everything goes according to plan, this is a simple 4 step process. Firstly you need to copy the registry patch and paste it into notepad. Then save as AVCHD.reg. Alternatively you can right click and save link as AVCHD.reg.
The second step is to run the AVCHD.reg file by double clicking on the file you have just created to edit your registry. (be sure to backup your registry first) This will will make the changes to add M2TS support to Windows media player or Windows media center.
The third step is to restart your computer so that the new registry is loaded.
The fourth step is to start WMP or WMC. If everything worked according to you should see all M2TS files that are in monitored folders appear in the video library. When you enable file sharing in WMP you should be able to stream the video to your Playstation 3 (PS3).
There is a new AVCHD player that’s been released by Elecard. The Elecard AVCHD Player is designed for high-quality decoding and playback of AVCHD Video.
You can download a 21 trial of the Elecard AVC HD Player which cost $65 thereafter. There are also options for:
- Elecard AVC HD Suite $99.50
- Elecard AVCHD Editor $49.95
- Elecard Converter Studio AVC HD Edition $75.00
We have not tried nor tested this AVCHD player or editor, but do have a list of Free AVHCD players we’d recommend as well as AVCHD editors. If you have used the Elecard AVC HD Player please write a short write up of your experience in the comments section below.
Apart from the standard features one would expect from an AVCHD player the Elecard AVCHD player also includes according to the website:
Exclusive Features
- Closed Captions support
- DVD subtitles support
- Ability to decode MPEG-2 video in multithread mode on multiprocessor systems
- Real-time, high resolution MPEG-2 video playback at HD 1920×1080 at 25000 kbps, 25 fps on AMD® Athlon 64 3000+, 1.8Ghz with DirectX; AVC video playback HD 1920×1080 at 15000 Kbps , 25 fps playback on Intel® Pentium D 2.8 GHz with DirectX®
- Deinterlace option
- Seek forward and Seek backward options – ability to look through a movie by step. You can define step size as an interval of time (1, 2, 5, 10, 15 and 30 seconds) or as a number of frames.
- Quarter resolution playback (Preview mode)
- Detailed stream information from the video sequence and system headers and from the audio sample headers, statistics from the decoders and render filters. Audio stream output statistics
- URL opening for playback
- Support of RTSP, RTP, UDP protocols
- Fast forward/backward rewind in the RTSP client mode
- Ability to save the result of video trimming as an uncompressed raw data file (YV12, YUY2, UYVY, RGB24, RGB565, RGB555, RGB32)
- File trimming and saving into MPEG-2 and MP4 formats
- Ability to select elementary streams for saving in a file after trimming
- GOP-accurate AVI (DV, XviD, DivX, 3ivX, etc) trimming
- Playback can be started in Full Screen mode at startup. This mode is switched off after movie ends
- Tracing of video resolution changes and corresponding adjustment of the Video Window size
- DXVA hardware acceleration support
- Auto-shrink of the video window (important for HD video)
- Playback of a list of files as a single merged file
- Support of Sony® PSP and Apple® iPod, Apple® iPhone compatible streams
- Support of black/white filter lists
- Ability to disable the file history displaying
- Multi channel mode (available only to registered users)
- Screensaver disabling, if playback is started
- MPEG‑2 files indexing for more accurate positioning and file duration calculation
- Support of the player window docking to the screen edge
- Ability to hide the player window, when the video window is displayed
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Standard Features
Supported Formats
- MPEG-1 System Stream including VideoCD-compliant
- MPEG-1 Video Only
- MPEG-2 Program Stream including DVD-compliant (VOB) and SuperVCD-compliant (SVCD)
- MPEG-2 Video Only
- MPEG-2 Transport Stream
- MPEG-2 HDTV (including ATSC)
- PIM2 (AVI including MPEG-2 format)
- All 18 ATSC formats
- AVC/H.264
- MP4 System
- 3GPP2
- MPEG-4 SP-ASP (ISO/IEC 14496-2)
- other formats, if corresponding codecs are installed on your PC (AVI, WAV, MOV etc.)
Audio
- MPEG-1 Audio Layer (I, II, III) (ISO/IEC 11172-3)
- MPEG-2 Audio, including unofficial MPEG-2.5 format
- LPCM Linear PCM (an audio standard for DVD)
- AAC
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System Requirements
Hardware Requirements
- SSE-enhanced CPU (Intel® Pentium, Celeron, Xeon, AMD® Athlon, Opteron etc.)
- 128 MB RAM
- Any DirectX®-compatible VGA card
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Software Requirements
- Windows® 2000 (with DirectShow and DirectX 8.0 installed) or Windows® XP,Windows® 2003 Server, Windows® Vista.
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There’s a huge contigent of people who wonder where AVCHD come from, why it is used, what it stands for and more. If this kind of info tickles your fancy, continue reading.
AVCHD video is recorded using the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 video compression codec. The AVCHD video format was jointly announced by Sony and Panasonic in May 2006. In AVCHD comperssion, audio is stored in a compressed form (Dolby AC-3). What makes AVCHD a unique and advanced compression is that it includes features to improve media presentation such as:
- menu navigation,
- slide shows and
- subtitles
As is the case with DVD, AVCHD video allows the user to access individual video from a common startup screen. Furthermore it allows for slide shows to be shown from a sequence of AVC stills which can be accompanied by a background audio. In some HD camcorders Subtitles are used to timestamp recordings.
Here is where things get hairy if you’re not techinical. The subtitles, video and audio as well as ancillary streams are now multiplexed together into a MPEG-2 transport stream which is stored as binary files.
The structure of AVCHD video is derived from the Blu-ray Disc specification although it’s not identical to the Blu-ray spec.
AVCHD video is easily transferred to a computer by connecting the camcorder via either a HDMI or USB connection. Many HD camcorders can record to removable media such as SD, SDHC or Memory Sticks. Because of the fact that AVCHD camcorders record digital footage, transferring the AVCHD footage to a computer is much faster than copying video from a tape based system as it does not have to be done in real time.
Generally speacking, AVCHD editors requires powerfull computers and even playback of AVCHD video requires either a lightweight AVCHD player or a high end computer. Luckily there are a number of improvements in multi-core computers and graphics processors which brings AVCHD editing to general desktops and laptops.
References: Wikipidea.org
If you’re new to burning AVCHD content to DVD-R things might seem a little confusing at first. This is mainly due to the fact that AVCHD is a brand new format and things aren’t as standardized and straight forward as they’ll be in a years time. That said, don’t despair, you’ve made the right choice in purchasing a AVCHD camcorder to play AVCHD video with.
Question: Many people want to know if which, if any, Blue-ray players support blue-ray content on dvd-r. Unfortunately the answer is not as straight forward as you might have hoped it would be. Currently playing HD content on DVD through you blue-ray player depends on a variety of factors but…
Answer: Yes indeed you can burn AVCHD video to DVD by burning the MTS files (be sure you change the extension file as MPEG) using Nero or whatever burner software you have (just change to UDF 2.5) and you’ll be able to play DVD disc with HD content on a bluray player. This will not include menus or authoring for which you’ll need seperate software.
The amount of AVCHD video stored on DVD-R depends on the bit rate. With a bit rate roughly around 11500 Kbps, you’ll be able to store 45 minutes of 1080i video on DVD-R in HD DVD format. If you use a bit rate of 30000 Kbps for your video, then you will be limited to about 15 minutes per disc.
If you’ve purchased a Sony AVCHD HD camcorder, it comes with Picture Motion Browser (PMB) software which includes a “AVCHD Creation” option giving you the option to burn AVCHD to DVD-R.
To close, it is possible to simply copy AVCHD files from a memory card without any changes to a regular dvd-r and your PlayStation 3 (PS3) will read and play them. However it will not automatically concatenate streams and each clip will need to be started and stopped from the folder based menu. You need to wait long enough for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) to display all of the clips in the home screen before playing them to ensure the clips will play without stutter.
If you’re looking for a lightweight AVCHD player capable of playing your Sony AVCHD files on your computer you might want to consider one of the following:
Your recently purchased HD handycam camcorder from sony records movies as AVCHD files. AVCHD is basically a video compression standard that is used by all HD handycam and camcorder companies including Sony, Canon, Panasonic and JVC. AVCHD is here to stay, but it is still in its infancy which means that there is not a lot of software available to use with Sony AVCHD. Sony handycams are bought with software to help you play and edit AVCHD files. The Sony AVCHD player included in your purchase will enable you to play files recorded with your sony handycam on your computer. It’s important to know that the Sony AVCHD player requires some decent processing power and won’t work on your high school pc.
If you’d like to edit your movies with a state of the art editor you could try Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 or above which enables you to:
- Create Stunning HD Movies
- Share HD Movies on Blu-ray Disc
- Edit Sony AVCHD
- Surround Sound Mixing and Encoding
- Video Restoration Tools
- Add Professional Effects
If you’re not sure where you can play Sony AVCHD movies, the best and easiest way of playing a Sony AVCHD movie is directy through your Sony Handycam to your HDTV using a HDMI cable. But that’s not ideal. Alternatively you can plug your Sony Memory stick directly into your blu-ray player and watch your Sony AVCHD movies on your HDTV. Lastly, you can burn a blu-ray disc using software like example Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 mentioned above and start building up you professional AVCHD home movie collection. These blu-ray discs can be played by any blu-ray player for instance the Sony Playstation 3.
We’ve had many requests for AVCHD players that run on Apple Mac computers. As with most things in life, there are not as many Apple AVCHD players or Apple AVCHD editors as there are AVCHD players for Windows, BUT as with most things in life the ones that are available seem to be superior to their Windows counterparts.
You can download a Apple AVCHD Editor for yourself . You can also download the Apple AVCHD converter which is both powerful and easy to use. Both these programs work with any AVCHD capable camera as used by Sony, Canon, Panasonic, JVC and others.
The Apple AVCHD Editor for Mac allows you to easily edit your AVCHD movies on your Mac using a familiar user interface. The Apple AVCHD converter for Mac allows you to easily convert your HD Camcorder AVCHD movies to AVI for playback on your Mac using Quicktime. Both of these programs are feature rich and easy to use. Using your Apple you’ll also benefit from the renowned graphics capabilities to make the software perform superior to its Windows counterparts.
If you’re looking for AVCHD software for Windows, don’t despair, there is AVCHD software available for Windows users which rival its Apple AVCHD counterparts in all aspects.
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