Quicktime 7 and ACVHD and MTS

QuickTime version 7 has always supported H.264 video codec.
According to the notes provided with the update, QuickTime H.264 Compatibility Update 7.5.5 improves QuickTime compatibility with iChat.
ACVHD still gets converted at import.

More reading for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD

That's not exactly an answer to his question.

Can someone from Apple please tell us directly. Will an update to Quicktime be made that can read and convert AVCHD files? If so when? If not why not? And why has it taken so long to do?

Thanks

Can someone from Apple please tell us directly.
Apple makes it a point not to discuss plans for or changes to their products so it is unlikely any employee will respond to your question -- especially here.

Will an update to Quicktime be made that can read and convert AVCHD files?
Not likely. Video editing applications like iMovie '08 and Final Cut, as well as, third party applications like Voltaic already have this capability.

If not why not?
Probably because neither the MPEG wrapper nor the AC3 audio are natively compatible with the QT structure and require their own special processing modules.

And why has it taken so long to do?
Since other Apple and third-party applications are already available, it has not "taken so long to do."

I just wanted a player so I can view my movies without having to spend hours converting them first and using 10x more HDD space. However it looks like I will be forced to do this in Windows.

Hi. Roxio's Toast (versions 9 and 10) comes with the Toast Video Player and this plays .MTS files well without having uncompress them. Oddly the Toast Video Player is buried away inside the main Toast app package, to find it look in Toast titanium > Contents > Resources > Toast Video Player.