[MW Forums]

Panasonic will begin selling in December two new high-definitinon camcorders based on the recently-developed AVCHD format, it said Wednesday. more

[Machound]

Hey, MacWorld! Nobody can play AVCHD on their Macs. Please let people know.
Apple's codecs, VLC, MPEG StreamClip, nor any other Mac software will play AVCHD. I've tried everything I could think of on Sony HDR-UX1 and HDR-SR1 sample AVCHD recordings. Camcorder Info confirmed that in their recent UX1 review: "Our Macs were rendered entirely useless, as the software can only be installed on Windows machines."
Let's not get too excited about AVCHD video until we can at least view it, let alone edit anything!
Is Panasonic going to release a Mac AVCHD player program... unlike Sony? Or is the expectation that everyone is going to run out and buy a BluRay recorder and deck just to watch their home videos? (...if that even works.) Don't look to QuickTime for any help here.

[JakeT]

I'm glad to see SD video cameras coming out.
Why would you need AVCHD for an SD card? You can already store any size video file on it.
I would also like to see a lot of choices for size and frames per second. 1080i is great, but I'd also like to see 720p at 60 fps and 120 fps, etc. Slow motion replay would be great if the original had a high fps.

[alansky]

Which would you rather do:
1. Store 90 minutes of video on a $200 card (or)
2. Store 90 minutes of video on a $2 tape?
Let me think about this for awhile..

[Machound]

I doubt too many people will be storing their video on SD cards. Being able to capture 16-32 GB on an SD card (after prices fall) and transfer it to hard drives will probably appeal to many consumers.
That's where the playback problem becomes critical. How the heck are Mac people going to watch this stuff? Even on the Windows side, you're dependent on crappy bundled software from Sony or Panasonic to see your videos. At least Sony's bundled software is known to be crappy.... Panasonic's has yet to be seen.

[JakeT]

I would prefer the card. Cards are random access. You can delete something in the middle. New video gets recorded in whatever free space is available. With a tape, you have to worry about recording over something. Cards are small so they could put multiple cards slots on the camera in the space that a tape requires. They are going up in capacity and down in price. It looks like you can get a 4G card for under a hundred dollars currently.

[JakeT]

Digital cameras use flash memory to store the pictures. It would be cheaper to store the still images on tape. Would you rather do that?

[Exponent]

Hmm - 3 CCD implies good video quality, but then the only bitrate I see listed is 6 Mbps. American HD 1080i broadcasts run 11-18 Mbps. This brings up two questions:
1. Does the OAVCHD format use the same MPEG2 algorithm as broadcast HDTV, or something more efficient like H264?
2. Does anyone know if you have the option of saving at a higher bitrate - and thus higher quality, at the cost of reduced recording time on the memory card?

[Zobeid]

The SD-based camera sounds nifty, but I'd prefer 720p.

[leroybrown]

Quote:

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I would prefer the card. Cards are random access. You can delete something in the middle. New video gets recorded in whatever free space is available. With a tape, you have to worry about recording over something. Cards are small so they could put multiple cards slots on the camera in the space that a tape requires. They are going up in capacity and down in price. It looks like you can get a 4G card for under a hundred dollars currently.

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Bah - that's silliness.
Tapes is cheap, and you can store scads of stuff on it at a higher quality than you can on a 4GB card. I've seen 4GB cards for what around $50-100. Yes, the cards will no doubt transfer video faster than the tape does, but with the high compression that they're applying to the video, it hardly seems worth it to me. Plus - do people actually leave their video on the tape anymore?! I produce an iMovie with it, and burn it to disk. Aside from the one-off cost of transferring it from the tape to hard disk, there aren't any significant advantages to using cards (yet).

[VidPro]

I don't believe these HD cameras are any different than the ones Sony has already been selling, in that Sony admits that there will be motion artifacts when there are camera or subject moves. I have seen the motion artifacts on their standard definition DVD cameras and find them quite objectionable, and with the higher definition of these cameras this must be even more disconcerting.
Based on reviews I've read of the Sony cameras, the AVCHD is a proprietary format that is compatible with neither any form of MPEG nor with H264. Nor is it as efficient or comparable in quality with H264.
I think if you could save at a higher bit rate, it would have been mentioned in the review.

[Schneb]

Sorry Panny, you aren't listening to customers on this one. You can store the video on a floppy drive for all I care. The problem is that you chose a format that cannot be edited on a Macintosh, and are still under the assumption that interlaced video is still kind of a cool idea. So cross one HD Camcorder off my list.

[Machound]

Quote:

---

Hmm - 3 CCD implies good video quality, but then the only bitrate I see listed is 6 Mbps. American HD 1080i broadcasts run 11-18 Mbps. This brings up two questions:
1. Does the OAVCHD format use the same MPEG2 algorithm as broadcast HDTV, or something more efficient like H264?
2. Does anyone know if you have the option of saving at a higher bitrate - and thus higher quality, at the cost of reduced recording time on the memory card?

---

AVCHD is H.264. But don't be fooled into thinking that means great quality. Initial experience with the Sony UX1 and SR1 cams have been disappointing (relative to HDV) at 12 and 15 Mbps, respectively. 6 Mbps isn't likely to fare well in the quality department. In theory H.264 might be able to do ok at 12-15 Mbps once the codec gets fine-tuned through a few product generations. But Sony's current AVCHD codec inserts considerably more digital noise than their MPEG2 counterparts in the HDV cams (HC1 & HC3.)
These early models are proof-of-concept. Longer term, as codec efficiency improves I expect AVCHD will carry the day. In 3-5 years we probably won't hear much about HDV anymore.
Meanwhile, do you want to buy first generation AVCHD stuff? I certainly don't, especially not at 6 Mbps. These low bitrates will discourage even casual home videographers. Think of this as a 1.4 megapixel digital camera in 1999... you could see where digital camera makers were headed, but was it really worth buying? Maybe, for some the answer was yes. Most of us will wait until the AVCHD kinks are worked out.
Having just bought a Sony HC3 I'll be looking for an AVCHD cam in perhaps 5-6 years. For now I have a proven workflow with a cam that's got pretty amazing quality and is lots of fun. I'm not saying the HC3 is perfect... just that its quality is miles better than any 1st generation AVCHD cam. There's no way a 6 Mbps AVCHD cam can possibly compete with a 25 Mbps HDV cam for quality. Even Sony's first 15 Mbps (max) AVCHD cam doesn't compete despite its higher price.

[JakeT]

I think iTunes video is H.264, so AVDHD must be doing something weird if it can't be viewed on a Mac. My digital camera takes video and stores it as a file in a folder on the SD card. I can watch that video on my Mac. That's what I want to see in an HD camera that uses SD cards. I don't see where AVDHD adds anything for SD card cameras.