AVCHD video: The hardware is willing, but the software is weak

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After 20 years in the biz, I've lost count of how many times I've heard, "The software hasn't caught up with the hardware." Usually, however, it simply means you have to wait a bit before recognizing the speed benefits of your expensive 64-bit, dual-core system, or find games that show off the long-shader support in your graphics card. With camcorders, however, it means you can't use your video.

Personally, I don't consider a camcorder as mainstream if you have to search the Web and troll forums to find software to play or edit your video. The highly lame software that comes bundled with these models doesn't count. And that's where we stand with AVCHD, even eight 10 months after the first models hit the market.

Sony Handycam HDR-SR7(Credit: CNET)

I just reviewed the Sony Handycam HDR-SR7, a very nice HD camcorder hamstrung by lack of software support. What surprised me was the situation hasn't changed much since late last year when I reviewed its equally promising predecessor, the SR1 . Now, as then, the only thing you can easily do with the video is play it on an HDTV, direct from the camcorder. Neither Microsoft Windows Media Player nor Apple QuickTime as yet offer decoders--a reader below claims he plays files in QT, but I think he's confusing the H.264 codec with the AVCHD format, because as far as I can tell, neither QT nor QT Pro recognize the format. That means you can't simply play the files on a computer, much less send them to your friends, without down-converting to SD (which defeats the purpose of spending the extra $500 or so for an HD camcorder). After a few days of retracing the Web tracks I made last year, I decided to share the current state of AVCHD support with all you potential buyers.

Canon HG10(Credit: CNET)

Updated 8/9/07: Adding to the confusion, the Canon HG10, which we've just reviewed (and admittedly isn't shipping until mid-fall), can record 1,440x1,080/24p video. It's likely that most of the software won't support that mode in the first go-round. The camcorder will be bundled with an as-yet unconfirmed set of Corel applications. My guess is VideoStudio 11, which doesn't yet support the 24fps files.

Canon HR10(Credit: CNET)

Updated 10/24/07: I've never been a big fan of DVD-based camcorders, but mixing them with AVCHD seems to be one of the worst ideas evah. You just end up with the worst of two worlds: slow, unstable (for real-time recording, at least) low-capacity media combined with a confusing, low-compatibility encoding format. Can you tell I've just completed my testing of the Canon HR10? The HR10 ships with four Corel applications: InterVideo WinDVD SE for playback; Ulead DVD Movie Factory SE, for importing and transcoding AVCHD files into other formats; DVD Movie Writer SE, for burning DVDs; and GuideMenu, which seems to function much like Sony's MediaCheck tool, sitting in your system tray watching for AVCHD files to appear in your file system. For what it's worth, the way Movie Factory handles AVCHD files is--unsurprisingly--just as annoying as VideoStudio 11's.

I also ran into an as-yet unsolved mystery: Windows XP on my system could not properly read the AVCHD disc (Windows Explorer reports zero objects), while our lab tech had no problem whatsoever on his system. On my PC, the bundled software apps read the disc, but nothing else could. Of course, an afternoon of googling yielded no useful information about my Lite-On DH16A1L, which could be a culprit. Suggestions welcome.

Updated 10/25/07: Rabw mentions Elecard Converter Studio AVC HD Edition ($75; free trial) below as a potential solution. I purposefully haven't discussed transcoders--software that converts files from one encoding format to another--for a couple of reasons. First, I believe that any file format that requires manual transcoding before you use it is not transparent enough to be an adequate consumer solution. It's true that all video-editing software transcodes video into an intermediate format, but it does so on the fly without user intervention. Second, once you start discussing transcoding software you inevitably must address the quality of the encodings, which I so don't have time to test. You guys are free to post comments with your experiences, however.

Playback:

* UPDATED 1/16/08: Nero 8 Ultra Edition Enhanced 8 (with ShowTime 4) . $80; there's a 15-day trial download, but the download will cease to install after January 31, 2008 April 1, 2008.
* CyberLink PowerDVD Ultra. $100; no trial download available.

* added 10/24/07: