AVCHD Editing Software

I have enjoyed the ease of use and surprising power of the built-in Windows Movie Maker product but it really hasn’t progressed with the times and the newest “Windows Live” version of Movie Maker seems to be going backwards.

Recently we purchased a high definition camcorder that saves natively to AVCHD. We love the camcorder but are struggling with what editing software to use. I downloaded the Adobe Premiere Elements trial, which natively supports AVCHD , but its nowhere near as intuitive as Movie Maker. I had hoped to try Pinnacle Studio but they don’t seem to be interested in offering a trial version.

Dear reader, what do you suggest?

6 Comments

  • Kenny,
    Have you checked www.videohelp.com?
    This is a great website for video tools of all sorts, reviews, guides and forum opinions that really matter.

    I for once own a JVC Everio Digital HDD VideoCAM, which came with truly horrible software from Cyberlink. The Everio uses a proprietary variant of MPEG, which could only be accepted by this Cyber-rubbish. With help from videohelp.com I was able to find MPEG StreamClip to convert the proprietary format into proper MPEG. I've not gone into authoring video as of yet, so I hope you will find some further tips at Videohelp.com

  • I bought a Canon AVCHD camcorder and have had a similar experience. My camera came with Pixela ImageMixer. I found Pixela usable but not as intuitive as MS movie maker. More dissappointingly, it occassionally becomes unresponsive for seconds at a time while mixing. To be honest I am unsure if this is the software or my laptop's limitations. AVCHD will push most PC's to the limit...

    I think I will tough it out for a while...Maybe MS will change direction and ship an AVCHD codec once the camcorders get more market penetration.

  • JapanMan: I hear Windows 7 may have native support for AVCHD.

  • OT, but; the KnownFoldersBrowser links are dead

  • asf: Yeah, I used to store all blog images and downloads on my personal web server. I’ve since repurposed that server. Fortunately this blog now provides hosting for such files. I’ll try and get those older posts updated some time soon.

  • I bought a Canon HF100, which records in AVCHD. The supplied software would crash when I started it, so I was going to return it, but I found a post on videohelp.com that allowed me to use the video files on Windows Movie Maker. I didn't even have to purchaser anything.

    See forum.videohelp.com/topic347139.html

    I had to modify the .bat file so that it saves the file as an HD file. It works and it's very simple. I also learned more about the avisynth scripting language so I can edit the videos too.

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