If You're Looking For More Info About The AVCHD Codec, Read This!

The Advanced Video Codec High Definition (AVCHD) format utilizes one of the most efficient video codecs developed to date. Since its first announcement in May of 2006 until now, AVCHD has grown into a high-quality video format that rivals other professional media. But, not unlike most video formats, it takes a good editor to get the most out of it.

The Mini DV format revolutionized videography. It was a huge jump forward for consumers, and later professionals would see its benefits too. Currently, many professionally-produced TV shows still rely on prosumer Mini DV camcorders. Its durability and small size makes it a practical solution for many different applications.

Then along came HDV, which is a logical progression from Mini DV: high definition video squeezed onto the Mini DV tape format using MPEG-2 compression. The HDV format has delivered great results for numerous years now. We've seen it mature into professional video cameras as well. Yet, innovation was on the heels of the HDV format.

The AVCHD format capitalizes on the H.264/MPEG-4 video compression technology that is much better at squeezing video data down to smaller sizes. This is ideal for consumer shooters. More hours of video can be stored in the same amount of storage space without sacrificing visual quality. The AVCHD video format was born and soon consumer camcorders arrived.

One challenge of the AVCHD format is that it can be stored on a variety of media. Unlike Mini DV and HDV which are stored on Mini DV tape, AVCHD can be stored on DVDs, memory cards and internal memory (i.e., hard drives and Flash memory). With all these storage possibilities, it can be frustrating as an editor to find a way to import all of it into your machine. If you're editing a video for a friend or client, you may need them to bring in their camcorder and not just their media. Further complicating the matter is that many shooters end up transferring the footage to their PC to clear their memory card or internal memory. With the footage stored on a hard drive, it may not be compatible with your editing system or software. It all depends on how the shooter got the footage off the camcorder and onto the PC.

Many AVCHD camcorders ship with software that allows shooters to import the footage in its native format. This is useful for doing simple playback of your footage. Other applications will also allow you to convert the footage to a different format. For example, Panasonic's Professional Video division has a software tool that will convert AVCHD to their ProHD video format, which is much more compatible in professional editing environments.

When managing AVCHD media, be smart and make sure your client has the original source footage, preferably on the storage medium that the camcorder uses. This will make importing much easier. Speaking of which, let's take a look at that process.

If you are thinking about using AVCHD, you should consider how your preferred video editing software handles this video format. The fastest method for ingesting AVCHD is to use an application that has native support for AVCHD. This means that you can import the video files directly into the application without having to transfer it to another video format. Let's take a closer look at what native AVCHD support looks like.

When you are shooting AVCHD, new video files are created on the recording media every time you press the record start/stop button. When you import this footage to a native AVCHD-supported editing application, the video files will individually display, and you can select which files you want to import for use in your project. These AVCHD files will immediately load into your project bin and be ready to be trimmed and/or placed on your timeline. It takes only a fraction of a second for the application to "see" the files and import them into the project. Such immediacy is ideal for those editors who have a super-fast turnaround time.

One downside to native support for AVCHD, is that the files are still in their "very compressed" state, which means that your computer will need as much processing power as possible to play back and edit the footage. This may slow render times for motion effects, color processing and other special effects. If you want to add a lot of finesse or your editing application does not support native import, you may want to consider the "Log and Transfer" alternative.

Log and Transfer is very different from the common Log and Capture of the traditional tape media. Let's dissect both of these processes.