Why Apple, Why?

I have an old JVC camcorder which I use now and again as it is smaller than the mirrorless Panasonic and lighter, and it still takes good video even if it is only HD. It takes video in AVCHD and when i connected it to my Mac I could not find the video, I saw a file in the private folder called AVCHD, but that was it.
Anyway after some looking about online I eventually found a thread in the Mac rumours forum, that said how to access the files, right-click on that file and select show package contents.

But why? It is a folder on Windows and Linux and yet Macs see it differently. I am so glad I found that thread, otherwise I would be going more crazy than I am. I have not tried the Panasonic yet, that should be fine as it uses mpeg4.

I know one thing, da Vinci resolve on the Mac handles AVCHD better than it does on my PC

When I Googled for it the answer you needed was the first result.

As to the why, it will likely be because that was going to be the best experience for the Mac average user. Wikipedia suggests that AVCHD was also briefly used as a distribution format as well as the format for some video cameras.

Making the AVCHD folder behave as a package means that the average user opening it will get the contents of it loaded in their video playback app, where the app can then use all the contents pages and thumbnails that can be present in the folders under AVCHD to provide a better user experience for playing back the video content.

I suspect if you open the AVCHD into iMovie that it will understand it has video content within it and let you import it. N.B. I'm not suggesting you do this, just explaining how this would have worked for people when this functionality would have been added to the Mac back in 2006/2007.

You're very new to the Mac so you probably don't know that Apple use this for better effect in other areas. For example, go and open your Applications folder in Finder.

Pick any app in there, right click on it and select "Show Contents". You'll then discover that app Mac apps are in fact folders. The folder contains the various executable files, resources (images, fonts, multi-language strings) and lots of other metadata needed by the app.

This approach allows* Mac apps to be totally self contained and portable, in a way that almost all Windows apps are not. You can drag a Mac app around from folder to folder, taking all its executable and metadata folder with it. You can even drag them onto another disk and just run them from there.

In comparison Windows apps tend to have dozens if not thousands of executable files and metadata spread all over the place (though the situation with DLLs is better than it was). And almost all of them rely on an installer to get the files in the right place and if you start moving files around they typically fail.

This "app as a folder" approach also gives the Mac the easy uninstall story. For most** apps if you just delete the app from Finder the app is totally deleted, all its files (except maybe settings) are gone. On the Windows side you almost always have to run an installer to remove an app.

To the average user a Mac app looks like a file, that can just be moved around. Even if they move them they will still work and files opened will still get opened in the right app.

They also use this for Final Cut Pro bundle files and in a few other places.

* this doesn't stop the occasional Mac app from overcomplicating things and not keeping all its resources in its app package folder

** and yet again, the occasional Mac app overcomplicates things and does have an installer/uninstaller

The first thing that came up was "How Do I View AVCHD Files on Mac" which really did not tell me how to access them. I had another look and there is a video showing me how, I should have tried that, but I did not.

Thanks for the info, but I know that mac apps are contained and are folders and can be moved around. You are correct that iMovie recognises the video and will import it. I thought I would give it a try.

A lot of camcorders that uses AVCHD are consumer camcorders and maybe Apple thought that it was the best way to allow them to edit home videos in imovie, maybe.
Imovie is not bad to be honest for what it is, better than MS attempts.
It is just getting used to things I suppose, it is not that I am going to use the JVC a lot, I just have to remember about it.

Message a friend, and she said Final cuts works the same way with AVCHD files.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Message a friend, and she said Final cuts works the same way with AVCHD files.

This is not surprising, iMovie and Final Cut Pro share a lot of base level code even though Final Cut is far more fully featured.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

This is not surprising, iMovie and Final Cut Pro share a lot of base level code even though Final Cut is far more fully featured.

I like Final cut, but out of my price range for what I do.

Different companies do things differently and one needs to get used to it. Just like MS change location for certain files in certain folders from XP to W7 to W10.

It a container I would have thought and this is how Macs handle these as the contents can be various formats inside the container.

It isn't a container, not in the way that files like for example MP4 files.

It isn't a single file, it is a set of folders with video files and metadata files.

Apple refer to these special folders as "Packages". Hence, when you right-click you are invited to "Show Package Contents". They are obviously a little special because, unlike folders, double-clicking on them runs the underlying application rather than displaying their content.

So I'd say it is not incorrect to refer to them as "containers" (although this has a rather different meaning in modern usage - nothing to do with files or folders).

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

So I'd say it is not incorrect to refer to them as "containers"

The UI shows them as a package. The file system shows them as a directory. The UI lets you move the entire package around and treats it as an object.

I personally wouldn't use the term container, given the way the IT industry now uses that term, a 'package' would be better. Or as Apple calls them ".app", viz Mail.app