AVCHD

AVCHD (Advanced Video Coding High Definition) is a format for the digital recording and playback of high-definition video typically used by Camcorders - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD and is similar to that used by Blu-ray disks but has some notable differences including using a 8.3 naming convention for it's HW compatibility to record to removable media.

An AVCHD Structure will contain at least one MTS video file comprising an AVC/h.264 Video Stream, Audio Stream and Potentially Subtitles. An AVCHD Structure can be made up of many of these Files as well as other components like Playlists (Chapters) and Menus.

Playback

While Media Center does not directly support the playback of the AVCHD Structure itself (or it's Menu) it will be able to import, play and tag each of the MTS files themselves (located in the STREAM subfolder) as it they were standalone video files in any folder structure. In many cases this is the desired behaviour when each of the MTS video files in the AVCHD structure contain standalone content.

Convert AVCHD to a Blu-Ray Stucture

Alternatively, you can get AVCHD structures to play in MC just fine by "converting" them from their 8.3 file names to long filenames with that attached batch file .... just run it (minus the ".txt" extension) from the BDMV directory and all should be good - original post was here http://www.dynatec.at/techblog/creating-a-ps3-compatible-avchd-dvd

More

• Refer to Blu-ray for information on Blu-ray.
• Please see for Hendrik's discussion of changing AVCHD handling in MC.