To many videographers, word of Sony and Panasonic's new AVCHD format came out of nowhere. Before the news even spread, licensing had begun and Sony announced its first camcorder models.
Since then, a number of "gotchas," or production limitations, have come to light that may impede its universal professional use.
Firstly, AVCHD may employ the most advanced MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 compression, but for now the video must be stored on standard definition DVD media. That means shorter record capacity-15 minutes max for best quality. To get longer times, you'll need to record to a hard drive. (And, even though AVCHD records to standard DVD media, the disks won't play back in today's DVD players.)
AVCHD shares the same compression methods used for movies on Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD, but for now, Blu-ray and HD DVD drives don't work in camcorders. That could be months, or years, away.
Secondly, you can't edit with it. At the moment, AVCHD is incompatible with all existing HD camcorders and editing systems. Most NLE software will be unable to read the discs or files that the new camcorders produce.
Of course, over time that will change. Sony and Panasonic recently announced that Adobe, Sonic Solutions and Ulead Systems have signed on to eventually support AVCHD. But two major NLE providers-Apple and Avid-are not yet on that list.
The future of the AVCHD format depends on how much third-party support materializes. AVCHD camcorders won't sell if shooters can't watch and edit their video. And, since the first camcorders are due this fall, there's not much time for the pieces to fall into place.