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