I have a Canon HF10 and have shot lots of video but am now just finding some time to get into editing it. My computer (PC) isn't quad-core or anything, so it has trouble even playing the .mts AVCHD files, much less opening them up in Premiere and editing them. I've searched the net...but kept running into dead ends (or the proverbial 'Get a mac' response). Anyone out there convert their .mts or .m2ts files into .avi or .mpg and edit from there? If so, what program do you use and what settings minimize your quality loss. I'm archiving the .mts files for the future....but would like to edit some vids now too. Thanks for any helpful links or instructions.

I just edited it from AVCHD on Sony Vegas... For a while I was using a 3 year old toshiba laptop, and while the rendering of the final file was super slow, it's speed when editing wasn't that bad...

You'll probably need to convert your files to a less stressful codec if your computer won't play your footage back smoothly now. Raw footage remains the same whether it is in Premiere or being played back by by some other means until it's edited. You might as well use Premiere to convert it. Do a small test and make sure it plays back correctly before you spend a bunch of time converting it all. <BR> <BR>There may be some other problem with your system where any video won't play back properly.