meanwhile

DPR Quote of the year - "Not Francis, perhaps, but sensible people".

Yeah, if you had $1100 for a camera like this I can't think of any reason for this over the X100s. Can anyone? (serious question)

It doesn't f****** matter. Any decent camera will take great photos with a solid photographer behind it.

So upgrade a test workstation and see what happens. 10.8.x is among the best Mac OS releases I've seen myself, and I've been around since 7.x. It's solid, it's fast, seems pretty robust and secure to date. Obviously it depends on what you run, but there's very little reason not to go to the latest release. Fear of the past is not really one of them, just test and mitigate going forward, no?

I'm confused, I think you meant "tkbslc:". I agree that RAW is the way to go.

RAW is pretty much necessary with the XZ-1, due to the noise reduction issue. I've also found RAW handy on the S90, and don't find it any more work at all. Which RAW software are you using?

Either way, it's a damn fine lens and the highlight of both cameras, so it's really a non-issue isn't it?

"Nobody in 500px will ever be represented by a real art gallery."

Given that the site is called 500 *pixels* I'm guessing that it's not really a goal.

500 pixels

I just found that Smart Converter is a nice free tool to do the job too (opening .mts files). Simply select Other > Quicktime for the conversion and you'll get a quickly wrapped file with no video conversion (so no quality loss) and directly openable in pretty much anything.

http://www.shedworx.com/smartconverter

You still likely wouldn't call that native, but given that it's free and the video isn't converted it's close enough for me. Given that it's not really very long since Win added AVCHD support themselves, it likely won't be long before it's supported on Macs too. Either way, it's not actually needed in the field with the available options for 99.9% of files, so it's just semantics really.

Yes please, interested here.

"Macs will play AVCHD(aka MTS) files with some additional files, also from the camera. Looks like one needs the entire Private Folder from the camera's flash card. Glad there's the work around, still wouldn't call it native playback."

How, you are wrong here. It's time to move on. An MTS file does not an AVCHD file make. The spec of the AVCHD file includes "some additional files". A properly formed AVCHD file, includes those things. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AVCHD_actual_file_structure.svg

Your PDF analogy is flawed, it's more akin to: if you hand someone a bunch of JPEG files that you had in a PDF file, but don't give them the PDF file itself. It's not the same thing, you haven't given them the whole file.

Do I wish that there was direct support for playing .mts stream files (which is outside the AVCHD spec)? Sure. Does that amount to not having native AVCHD support? No.

OK, here's how it looks like the situation is. Macs running 10.8.x can play (yes, natively) AVCHD files if they contain all of the folder structure (/PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM, etc).

For example, I downloaded this sample: http://hownowvideo.com/downloads/panasonic_AG-HMC150.zip
and it played without any problems - and should for you too How (just double click on PRIVATE and it should play in QT Player). The AVCHD files from my Sony A35 have this structure too, and work directly in QT Player.

If you just have the .mts stream file by itself, that will not play directly, and will have to be converted before use.

Here too:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3775?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Below are the media formats and codecs that QuickTime Player can play back in Mac OS X v10.6.x or later:

AVCHD (OS X Mountain Lion only)

"So clearly some form of conversion needs to done with AVCHD files on a Mac."

You keep using that word. I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Perhaps, just perhaps, there are different kinds of AVCHD files?

Before we argue about it pointlessly any more, perhaps looking at was does and doesn't work would be prudent?

The AVCHD files I have produced and used work for me on my Mac without any conversion at all. BUT, they are not MTS files - which don't seem to work here (at least the two I downloaded from that site above). That said, it could be a simple configuration issue, so please let me look into it further before sinking to "I told you so".

AVCHD does work on Mac, I use AVCHD files here directly, so I know they work (without conversion) - but that may be qualified to particular types of AVCHD files. I don't know yet.

"Here's an Ehow link, updated in April 2012"

Now I now you aren't bothering to read anything I'm writing, and your only purpose is either to spread misinformation, or just have an argument. Multiples times, I've said the AVCHD support was released in JUNE. Why bring up an external article from 3 months before that?

Macs now play AVCHD videos without any problems (and without the need to add third party software to do it - which still doesn't mean they couldn't before, they could with those programs), you are wrong. They do not need to be converted to another format, they work natively, within the OS.

Your point was:
"Um, you do realize that you can't play (yes that's simply play) AVCHD video files on a Mac."

Which is completely and utterly false. And yes, I do understand what "natively" means. I am using no special player software, no external app - Quicktime Player comes with the OS. I opened the file from the Finder, directly from the SD card in the camera. Can't get much more native than that.

The point is - AVCHD files work without any problems on Macs, just not yours apparently.

"specialized player software"

Did you even look at the screenshot I posted above, directly from Quicktime Player? It's not specialized player software, it comes with the OS.

"In this thread I was never commenting on Aperture or iPhoto, I was making a point about Macs in general and AVCHD files, and that point remains completely valid."

No, in fact, it doesn't. Quite the opposite. This thread is about the Apple RAW Update, used by iPhoto & Aperture. So it does support AVCHD files if you are using this software (you know, the one that the thread is about). Natively, and in-app. If you can be bothered doing what you describe as hours of research into something that you say is incredibly important to you, you'd think that forking out $10 for iPhoto would be worth your time to completely solve your issue.

Unless it's just for argument's sake?

"I tried mightily to make a new Mac play AVCHD files about 8 months ago and I just couldn't, so I have looked into this problem."

The AVCHD support was added 6 months ago. Did you even read any of my comments above?

"I already specifically said I wasn't commenting on conversion with FinalCut or iMovie"

And I'm specifically NOT talking about that either. I can open AVCHD files directly in the Finder, natively, and play them directly in Quicktime Player. No conversion, no Final Cut. Native.