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.

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.