AVCHD Thumbnail

[qtrim]

Does the AVCHD standard allow for thumbnails, so that when a disc is authored and then inserted into, say a PS3, it will show a thumbnail like a BluRay does?

[Ken Berry]

I am not absolutely certain what you are asking, but I have a PS3 and also make AVCHD videos. I play the videos via either a suitably large USB thumb drive or external hard drive connected to the PS3 via USB. The PS3 is connected to my HDTV via HDMI. As you would perhaps realise, the PS3 will only recognise individual videos if they are in a folder labelled (in capitals) VIDEO. In my case, it sees all video clips in such a folder, both HDV and AVCHD, and displays thumbnail icons in a vertical list for me to choose from.

I might add that I have the PS3 connected to my home network as well, for playing my music and photo collections. However, the network servers or the connections themselves don't seem fast enough to play any HD video without considerable stuttering. Nevertheless, again, thumbnails are generated via the server programs I use (either the PS3 Media Server or Windows Media Player or Nero Media Home) the same way way as described above, regardless of whether they will play or not.

As far as discs are concerned, I have also authored AVCHD hybrid discs using SD DVD blanks. I use a menu generated by VS on such discs. When you insert these discs in the PS3 in video mode, they show up as other discs do as a sort of spinning disc icon though there is no thumbnail with an image from the video on it. But you just select that icon with the remote control and it plays fine.

Although I recently finally bought a Blu-Ray burner, I have not yet burned a Blu-Ray disc with video edited in VS, so I can't comment on that.