Back in May we reported that Sony and Panasonic had developed the AVCHD specification for camcorders.
Since then, they extended the specification, licenced it, and promoted it heavily throughout the industry.
Any format wanting to gain ground and become the de facto standard needs to be as diversely usable as possible, so it's not surprising that Sony and Panasonic have expanded the types of equipment and storage media that can accommodate AVCHD.
The basic spec. outlined the use of AVCHD on digicams with 8cm DVD media. The range of media options now include SD memory sticks and cards, and hard disk drives. The format can also be incorporated into playback drives, PCs, and associated software.
The impressive list of vendors already expressing support, and presumably working on solutions, for AVCHD include Adobe (Photoshop, Flash, Shockwave et al), Canon, InterVideo (makers of WinDVD), Pioneer, Samsung, and Ulead.
Specs are as follows:
- Recording media: 8cm DVD, SD Memory Card/Stick, HDD
- Video Signals: 1080/60i, 720/60p, 480/60i, 576/50i, 1080/50i, 720/50p, 1080/24p, 720/24p
- Aspect ratio 16:9 16:9 4:3, 16:9 4:3, 16:9
- Compression technology MPEG-4 AVC/H.264
- Luminance 74.25MHz 74.25MHz 13.5MHz 13.5MHz
- Audio Compression technology Dolby Digital (AC-3) Linear PCM
- Audio channels 1-5.1 channels 1-7.1 channels
And for completeness, the format now has its own website: avchd-info.org.
From: Sony to double BRAVIA LCD TV production for growing European demand