Premiere importing mts files problem

[marinteshvara]

Hi everyone!

We filmed some footage on the weekend on a Sony NEX FS100. The footage (.mts) was copied over to a hard drive, keeping the folder structure intact. I can open and view the footage using the Media Browser in Premiere CS4, but when I try to drag it into my sequence, the program crashes. The same thing happens when I try to import the footage using 'import'. I don't think the clips are corrupted, since I can view them using the media browser as well as with the VLC player. We are not using a trial version of CS4 (just thought I'd mention it, because I read that the trial version doesn't support AVCHD).

Can anyone imagine what the problem might be?

Also, would you even recommend editing the footage natively, or would you recommend converting it to a different format and possibly even editing with FC rather than Premiere? We chose Premiere because we wouldn't have to convert the footage, but perhaps there are good reasons to do exactly that...?

Help would be *hugely* appreciated!!

PS: I'd also be thankful if someone could move this thread to the correct section! I posted here to be safe. Thank you!

[marinteshvara]

Been doing more research and it all seems to come down to this post by Jiri Fiala on creativecow:

"It`s simple: AVCHD is unusable in Premiere CS4. It battles with straight cuts only, any effects or CC would render it absolutely useless. AVCHD hit the market few years too early, NO ONE, especially none of the consumers who happily think they will edit footage from their 300 USD HD camcorder on their PC, has the power to tame it.

The second thing is, PPRO CS4 is a buggy mess."

Unless someone can think of a different approach, my next question would be: starting with AVCHD footage, which editing program, which encoding program and which codec would you recommend?

[marinteshvara]

Surprisingly easy solution: CS5!