Invisible AVCHD files??

I do very little video but have been playing around with recording and playing back videos shot with my new Panasonic FZ1000. I have always shot in MP4 mode but tried AVCHD today just to experiment. Although the AVCHD video files show in playback mode on the camera, and play OK there, when I stick the SD card in my computer the AVCHD files don't show at all in Win10 File Explorer - not even when I enable "hidden" file viewing.

Why? Where are they?

From this, http://answers.microso​ft.com …-85fb-cd550512ad62?auth=1, it appears that Windows 10 doesn't support AVCHD files, at least as far as August 2015.

Thanks, John. I can understand that Win 10 cannot process the files, but I can't understand why the files don't show up at all on the disk.

I thought that ALL files, no matter what name or extension, should show up when viewed in File Explorer or Windows Explorer or any other regular file and folder method, since the files ARE obviously on the SD card.

I'll have to test it out on my trusty old XP machine

I've just found that my FZ1000 AVCHD movie files are obscurely stored on the card in a Private/AVCHD/BDNN/Str​eam sub-directory!

Also found that they can be opened easily in VLC player, AVS Video Converter and Lightroom 6.

Not that I ever plan to actually shoot and edit movies in AVCHD format, but I now know I could.

Heres a funny one for you... I shoot with a Sony NXCAM. When i use a freshly formatted card my AVCHD file folder is labeled with all caps... My mac cannot translate that into be the folder it is... IF i Un Caps the whole folder file name... wahlah there it is. then i have to do the same to the bdnn folder in that..... Crazy computers.

Using the converter is cool to convert mts video, AVS is a good one, I use that too.

lecherro wrote in post #17718994
Heres a funny one for you... I shoot with a Sony NXCAM. When i use a freshly formatted card my AVCHD file folder is labeled with all caps... My mac cannot translate that into be the folder it is... IF i Un Caps the whole folder file name... wahlah there it is. then i have to do the same to the bdnn folder in that..... Crazy computers.

In the MacOS, certain folder names are protected. AVCHD is one of them. You'll see that if you rename any folder.

Like lecherro said, you can rename AVCHD or BMDV to anything else, and they'll show up as normal folders and files.

OTOH, if you're recording long takes that create multiple 4GB files, it's important to import the whole card into your NLE. If you don't, the NLE doesn't correctly reassemble the take, there will be a few frames missing.

Re the choice of AVCHD over MP4, test them both to figure out what your NLE likes best. I did this and found out that Premiere likes the AVCHD of the Canon XA20 much better, with no need for it to create preview files like it did for MP4. At some cost of weird file management with that AVCHD folder structure...

The idea is to AVOID the need to use a converter!

I'm just remembering that Premiere CC has been through two upgrades since I tested, I should do it again!