What format u recommend i convert to for editing?

[vannhat]

i'm pretty novice with this stuff so i am asking for some help.
i shoot with a sony avc-hd handycam. i am satisified with how it looks. however, it saves footage as an MTS File.

my question is what do you guys recommend i convert it to while using IMOVIE to edit, while keeping as close to the original as possible? and what would a format under that? is there a degrading order of formats i should learn?

i converted them to mp4s and edited on imovie but they did not look as great as ...wmv-hd, but of course you can't edit with wmv-hd on imovie.

Thank you.

[Baldrick]

Doesn't latest imovie 09 or 11 support avchd? Or do you have some older version?

[vannhat]

i am not certain. i actually do not own the mac g5 that i am editing on. a friend is letting me use his.
is the formate you mentioned a close one to mts files? i would edit just the mts files, but the imovie will not read them.

[Baldrick]

I guess http://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa?threadID=&q=mts+imovie&objID=&dateRang e=last90days&userID=&numResults=15&rankBy=10001 should give you a better answer

[vannhat]

is there average file people convert to when they edit videos?