Sony & Panasonic Announce AVCHD Disc Format

Sony and Panasonic have announced a new high definition disk format called AVCHD - just when you thought you had the Blu-ray/HD-DVD thing sorted out!

Sony Corporation and Matsushita (under the aegis of its Panasonic brand) have announced (Japanese) a new high definition disc format called AVCHD. But don’t get too worried about the companies (both Blu-ray backers) further muddying the consumer electronics waters in the Blu-ray/HD-DVD battle: AVCHD is aimed exclusively at high definition camcorders, enabling playback and recording of high resolution digital video on 8 CM DVD media.

Sony and Panasonic say they intend to promote the format to the industry as a way to more easily enable consumer camcorders to produce HD video. AVCHD uses the MPEG-4/H.264 codec for video compression and Dolby Digital (AC-3) or Linear PCM for audio; in theory, AVCHD-capable camcorders will be able to record 1080i (at either 50 or 60 fps) or 1080p at 24 fps with 7.1 audio. Of course, lower resolutions are also supported, including 480i and 720p at 24, 50, and 60 fps.

However, the format is meeting with initial skepticism from the digital video community. First, consumer DVD players will need special software to be able to play AVCHD disks (although, since H.264 is the basis for both Blu-ray and HD-DVD video, this shouldn’t be difficult