AVCHD Support

when will Quicktime support AVCHD natively without having to transcode it first. I thought it's a quite common file format.

Probably never. QT is a time based media player (i.e., employs parallel tracks of data synchronized temporally). AVCHD, like DVD SD content, is multiplexed (i.e., spatially synchronized in an MPEG transport stream and stored as binary files). It is more likely that the Apple DVD Player would be be adapted to handle both AVCHD and DVD content just as today's Blu-Ray players can handle both Blu-Ray (AVCHD) content, as well as, the older MPEG-2 DVD content. While this would probably be the most logical evolutionary development work flow, its timeliness will likely be driven by user demand.

Actually, it sort of can.

The video and audio samples in AVCHD files are H.264 encoded (as the "AVC" part implies), but as has already been noted, the samples are not organized in a QuickTime compliant manner.

Divergent Media ( http://www.divergentmedia.com) has a product that easily fixes this called "ClipWrap." I use it to convert AVCHD to DV25 so that I can edit on my dinosaur machine, but it also will take an AVCHD clip and re-wrap it, without transcoding, into a QuickTime wrapper. It's very quick and gets you to a point where QuickTime can handle the file, provided your computer can actually play it (mine can't, although it does try...).

(I use ClipWrap, but my association with Divergent Media ends there)

For AVCHD video files, either use iMovie 9 OR you can still use iMovie 6 if you install Voltaic (only $40) from:

http://shedworx.com/voltaichd

Thanks for posting the ClipWrap link. What a clever program!

—Andreas

A press release from Mar 9, 2011 indicates that Panasonic has introduced AVCCAM Importer software, a QuickTime plug-in that eliminates the need to convert AVCHD files.

Here's a link to the story
http://www.eventdv.net/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=74269

The AVCCAM importer will be available this Summer as a free download from the Panasonic web site.