Of course it will. For one, it's HD video so it'll need to be burned to an appropriate format, and assuming it doesn't need to be transcoded (risky assumption), it'll still need a suitable medium to be burned to (HD-DVDr or BR-r etc) not to mention that the receiving party will need an appropriate player. AVCHD breaks down at least some of those barriers. Why else do you think Mini-DVD was commercially successful despite it's inferiority to MiniDV?
For one, you can get more than 20mins of HD content in one DVD, the difference is that an HDDVD or BR disc both hold 4 hour and more. And the reason why the Mini-DVD got a good run is simple: since they work in any DVD player they just go with the flow of the format.
Sorry but how is it much different to an ipod and itunes? While i dont pay much attention how many older mp3 players are compatible with the itunes format? What about their new movie format?
Not on standard DVD-Video, there's an upper limit on the resolution and the bitrate. Since AVCHD is supposed to be playable on Blu-Ray players this is a very similar situation. So what was your point again, then? That AVCHD is a poor format and won't succeed? You're not doing a very good job of backing up this view.
First, the MiniDVD didnt came to market until the DVD was almost everywhere, thus having an strong market to settle in. BR on the other hand is still waiting for launch. Second, the DVD didnt had any competition, while BR is going head to head with HDDVD, and btw recent market analysis give an upper hand in HDDVD over BR, much like in the 80s with VHS and the Beta.
AVCHD won't become standard for years anyway, by which point who knows what'll be the hardware standard for home HD. Last I heard Blu-Ray had all the corporate support, but HD-DVD seemed like a better deal for the consumer to me.
The reality is that AVCHD will never be THE standart. Sony itself has multipl formats for their camcorders: 8mm, MiniDV, microDV (or something like that), miniDVD and the new HDD. Honestly, I think that with HDD getting smaller and the perpendicular heads, HDD camcorders will become the comsumer favorite in the coming years...
That there are many different formats never stopped MiniDV and Mini-DVD becoming accepted standards for home video recorders, so saying that AVCHD could never become an accepted standard seems premature and presumptuous to me. I'm not trying to say it's a given winner that will become the de facto standard for all HD video recorders (I couldn't possibly predict), just that there's no reason why it shouldn't become accepted in the mainstream given it's just a logical progression of what we have at the moment (in much the same way that HDV is for MiniDV).
