AVCHD the new MP3/JPG of video?

[PuzZLeR]

Now that the format war is over (gee that's old news now ) we obviously have one standard - which may be around for 10 years, maybe more.

But I'm not talking just a disc standard. We all know about AVCHD - an H.264 format, which can be burned to any disc, or inputted through other means that can be, at least theoretically, playable on every blu-ray player everywhere without any extra features, certification from codecs, or anything else.

It's standard. Period.

It has high quality like any other codec and better. It's portable, flexible and contains many resolutions. Hypothetically speaking, not because I'm a pirate, but it's very realistic that, it could be the next big thing in bittorrent too.

I'm just wondering, does the blu-ray crowd here think that this would be very similar to video like mp3 is to music or jpg is to digitial images? I know its original intention is for the latest video cameras, but I see it being so much more - a format we'll all be encoding to when making our own stuff, archiving video, etc. for our blu-ray players now and in the future.

I'm already visioning my whole video library, tapes, DvDs, family movies, etc. - anything that isn't a BD disc - converted to this format in the next year or so. The software market is already adjusting to it.

What do you think? Thanks for reading.

[larsdennert]

Anyone know which players will play back AVCHD disks? I understand the BD1000 will not. I'm looking to buy a player.

TIA

[JadedRaverLA]

There's still a lot of work to be done on getting everything properly standardized and working before AVCHD can be widely used as a media delivery format. AVCHD is really just a specification for the transport stream that can exist on any media. While AVCHD streams can be played on the PS3 and PC software players, many Blu-ray players will not play the streams natively.

The actual spec that is "supposed" to be compatible with most players is called AVCREC, which is similar to AVCHD, but is stored on DVD+/-R/RW media and formatted as a UDF 2.50 BD disc.

So, the IDEA is that you can get an AVCHD camcorder to shoot video onto disc, hard drive, media adapter, etc, and then export to a PC for editing. Once edited, it can be exported to AVCREC for playback on Blu-ray players.

But there's still a ways to go with hardware and software support.

[PuzZLeR]

Hey JadedRaverLA,

I'm just trying to decipher what is indeed the "least common denominator" in the video stream. Not something that plays on a PS3 only, or non-PS3 BD players, but something "standard" on all of them (or soon to be...).

Personally, at this point in time, I could care less about the logistics of disc burning, whether it be on a DvD-5/9, BD-(R)E or even BD-9, UDF 2.5, whatever...blah, blah, blah. That, I believe, is not important right now and something that will work itself out. Content on a physical disc format can always be migrated easily if that changes.

The important thing is the stream content - a format that you won't have to re-encode a million times, burn out your processor, and melt off quality each time.

About AVCREC - there are no specs available for it as of this post. It's something the Japanese folk are keeping like a well-guarded secret.

The speculation is that AVCREC is really AVCHD, but with a different name, however its compatibility has extended to even include MPEG-2 due to the fact that North American broadcasters are still using the codec. There is no mention of VC-1 anywhere however.

As well, alot has to do with the format war being over and changes are taking place - such as maybe a name change now that Toshiba's HD Rec, the intended recordable HD-DvD format, will no longer be around.

My brain hurts...

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by PuzZLeR

Hey JadedRaverLA,

I'm just trying to decipher what is indeed the "least common denominator" in the video stream. Not something that plays on a PS3 only, or non-PS3 BD players, but something "standard" on all of them (or soon to be...).

Personally, at this point in time, I could care less about the logistics of disc burning, whether it be on a DvD-5/9, BD-(R)E or even BD-9, UDF 2.5, whatever...blah, blah, blah. That, I believe, is not important right now and something that will work itself out. Content on a physical disc format can always be migrated easily if that changes.

Understandable. My point was just that when talking about playback on Blu-ray devices, it's more correct to use the term AVCREC as opposed to AVCHD as that's the way the marketing is going to be describing playback of that content from here on out. More on that below.

The important thing is the stream content - a format that you won't have to re-encode a million times, burn out your processor, and melt off quality each time.

Originally Posted by PuzZLeR

About AVCREC - there are no specs available for it as of this post. It's something the Japanese folk are keeping like a well-guarded secret.

They ARE available. You can buy them from Blu-ray Disc License Entity: http://www.blu-raydisc.info/format_s...crec_specs.php . But as for "browsing"... no, they want you to pay for that.

Originally Posted by PuzZLeR

The speculation is that AVCREC is really AVCHD, but with a different name, however its compatibility has extended to even include MPEG-2 due to the fact that North American broadcasters are still using the codec. There is no mention of VC-1 anywhere however.

Allow me to "speculate" then. AVCREC is a physical disc specification that uses MPEG-2 transport streams to store BD-compatible AVC or MPEG-2 encoded video along with AC-3 or PCM audio (up to 18Mbps total) and subtitle information. The MPEG-2 transport stream is the same as used in AVCHD but the purpose of the two is slightly different. Also, a disc formatted as AVCREC is essentially a BDAV format disc, allowing for basic menus and chapter stops.

Really, the reason for having AVCREC is to standardize AVCHD as a format compatible with BD players/recorders. AVCHD was designed as a file format specification, which is great for camcorders and the like which can use whatever media they like to write to the format. For BD players, though, a disc format is needed in order to help maintain compatibility across the most devices possible.

Originally Posted by PuzZLeR

As well, alot has to do with the format war being over and changes are taking place - such as maybe a name change now that Toshiba's HD Rec, the intended recordable HD-DvD format, will no longer be around.

My brain hurts...

That's true. My guess is that they really wanted to define more specifically what was required of an AVCHD stream in order to play back correctly from Blu-ray players going forward. Simply sticking an AVCHD file on a disc and popping it into a player creates all kinds of compatibility issues, so it makes sense to rename it slightly in order to avoid confusion. Also, if they started releasing BD recorders that had AVCHD logos on them, people would expect those AVCHD discs to be compatible with their AVCHD comcorders and vice-versa -- which they might not, due to differences in disc structure.

So, yeah, we can call it whatever we want, they're essentially the same format... just one is more specifically targeted for BD player playback than the other. I think by the end of this year, though, we'll all be talkng about creating AVCREC discs for playback... and AVCHD will be mainly talked about in relation to camcorders, etc.

Regardless, I agree with you, once the software catches up, and firmware updates come out for most of the available BD players, AVCHD/AVCREC should be a great platform for widely compatible user-generated HD content.

[PuzZLeR]

JadedRaverLA, your information was much appreciated and I thank you for your most excellent reply. I understand fully the “marketing angle” and said distinction between the two. It is my understanding, and maybe speculation as well, that the two, AVCHD and AVCREC, are (almost) identical and only differ in what (hopefully) a simple lossless re-muxing of streams can easily take care of… Hey, it’s a nice thought…

I don't want to know how much such white paper spec documentation costs, but wouldn't be surprised if it's thousands of dollars - something a company in the industry would need to get a jump on the market.

...AVCHD/AVCREC should be a great platform for widely compatible user-generated HD content.

…and hey, let’s not forget our older SD content too! I guess AVC(HD/REC) can archive that as well, of course, in a lower resolution.

As well, it’s my hopes that this thread continues. I do believe this is an interesting subject for the future of our personal video. I would still love to hear what others think about this format, whatever it’s called, being the mp3/jpg of video.

And note to Mods, this is not about piracy – this is about archiving personal video in a common format as any video junkie would appreciate and this is outside the realm of what is available on a purchasable BD disc.