My friend has a camcorder and he mailed me a disc that was in AVCHD format. I put it in my Panasonic DVD BluRay player, and it played just fine. I would like to convert the AVCHD files on that disc to something my non-BluRay friends can watch, say .avi or .mpeg. I want to hand them a DVD that they can put into their standard DVD player or into their standard laptop and play.
I see that there are free AVCHD converters on the market that can change the disc's videos into .avi or .mpeg. But, HOW do you even start the process of conversion if your laptop does not recognize the original disc? When I insert the disc into my laptop, after some spinning and whirring a box pops up saying "Please Insert Disc into drive e:". It obviously believes the DVD is blank (or unreadable.) How can can I convert if the laptop won't even recognize the files that need to be converted? I am running Windows 7 Home Premium. I read elsewhere that Windows 7 had the ability or software included to play AVCHD files via Media Player. My laptop does not have that ability. I cannot watch any AVCHD files.
Do I have to have a BluRay style of DVD player in my laptop to even consider converting the original videos from AVCHD to avi or mpeg2? That is not clearly stated anywhere I have searched. My laptop has a standard CD-DVD burner.