What is the best way to handle these in Premiere CS3 or other editing software. Is there any advantage to converting these files to MP4 using the pass through in Ouicktime Player export options. That results in a MP file the same size original. Is Handbrake a better option for performing this conversion and if so at what bitrate? In the end I want to be able to save the edited and joined sequences as either MPEG2 for DVD or as DivX or Xvid. I have spent many hours trying to find a good tutorial or workflow for dealing with these MOV files. The editing software furnished with the camera is useless.

Thanks for any help anyone can offer