High definition video tape cameras record the material shot in mpeg-2 format. Besides the increased resolution (number of pixels), this is no different than video in normal resolution. This means that adding high definition to editing software has been easy to implement in regards to cameras that record on tape.

But for avchd cameras you need to have avchd compatible editing software as well.

The newer, more compact cameras that record on either hard drive or flash memory store the information using a more effective method of compression. And the absolutely most common one is the avchd format developed by Panasonic and Sony. The more efficient compression has one big drawback though - implementing the format without hitches in the video editing software has been somewhat of a challenge.

During the last year (2008) there has been a lot of improvement though. For example, the popular video editing software Adobe Premiere Elements got the feature of handling the avchd video format, when the software jumped from version four to version seven.

The first step in any video editing project is to transfer the shot material to the hard drive of your PC. With tape cameras the material is usually imported into the camera in real time, using a FireWire cable and port. The hard drive and flash cameras usually come bundled with a special program for transferring the data, but these really are quite redundant as the computer will see the camera connected through an USB port as it would any external memory. You can thus transfer the content as you would any files and avchd video editing software usually have the capability of accessing the files directly as well.

The avchd cameras almost always have a rather intricate folder structure for its files, based on the folder tree that has become standard on blu-ray discs. The most practical solution is usually to create a folder on the hard drive of your PC and then copy the entire content of the camera's memory, retaining the folder structure. Although if you prefer, you could also copy just the individual video files. They uually have the extension .mts and are usually found in a folder called Private / Avchd / Bdmv / Stream.

Finally, like with any material you should always keep a safe copy of all your raw material, and then use copied version of that to begin your video editing project. The actual editing does not differ that much from editing other formats. 

Besides burning the finished result of your hd video editing project to blu-ray or dvd, there are some other file formats you may want to consider, for displaying the material on various platforms.

The most flexible output format is mpeg, as the format encompasses many different options for compression and file extension. For storing material of HD-quality the most practical choices are usually one of the following (from the presets in Premiere Elements 7): "H.264 1920 x 1080i 25", "HD 720p 25" and "Mpeg2 1920 x 1080i 25". The first mentioned is the best alternative for avchd-video, as it is the same format as is used by the acvhd-cameras filetype.

This file format can be played on any PC that has avchd-compatible software installed, PowerDVD 8 for example. A compatible player is usually bundled with the avchd camera upon purchase, and the Playstation 3 video game console can play back the format directly as well. There are also a few free avchd codecs out there, but most of them leave quite a lot to be desired as far as performance goes.

The second option, 720p video, displays the lower hd resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels compressed with the mpeg-2 file format. This is a good option if you want to be able to display the material on a slightly older PC and it is currently also the highest resolution that can be displayed on Youtube. You can see an example on how this looks on Youtube in the cat-video below (click the rightmost button and select "HQ" after the video has begun playing). The file size of a 720p video is about the same as for avchd-files.

The third alternative, full hd format in mpeg-2 format, require about 1,5 times as much hard drive space as the other two options. Converting an avchd video into this format will lead to some slight distortion in the finished video, but nothing extremely disturbing. The biggest benefit of using mpeg-2 is the format's high compatibility with many viewing and editing applications.