“Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 for Mac is professional nonlinear editing software that allows editors to work directly on the timeline with every major tapeless camera format, including P2, XDCAM EX/HD/HD50, JVC ProHD, AVCHD, AVCCAM, DPX, RED R3D, Canon XF, and Nikon and Canon DSLR.” Adobe claims support for these formats is native and no need to transcode, but they will never mention exceptions.
I just got a Sony Nex 5n camera – it shoots 1080p @ 60fps. The format is “.mts“, with AVCHD compression. Anyway, the issue I have is that when I import the AVCHD files into Premiere CS5 to edit, i drag the files into the timeline they immediately need rendering, the timeline becomes extremely sluggish for scan/scrub or when previews. Whenever the camera is moving, the movement is very jerky and also blurry during a pan.
Any Googling I’ve done seems to bring up similar issues with editing AVCHD files, but no solid solution yet. People are saying that I should transcode the AVCHD files before importing into CS5, and there is also a general consensus that AVCHD is a great playback format, but not the best for editing. Higher end programs like Vegas Pro, Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro recommend AVCHD conversion to a digital format such as .avi, .wmv and .mov to allow a more productive timeline workflow and less loss though edit processing. continue reading…