Correct settings for MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 for Premiere Pro 1.0 (Premiere 7.0)

[urpq32]

I have just purchased a new HD camera (Canon T2i or 550D) and am trying to edit some video that I have taken.

I use Premiere Pro 1.0 (or Premiere 7.0 "Columbo"). The HD video (1920x1080) that it takes imports into Premiere OK. Unfortunately, viewing it in Premiere is choppy, and any attempt at exporting is also chopping. The raw video files (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 with a .mov extension) play on my PC smooth, so it is not my computer (stats should be in my profile).

I'm wondering what the correct settings are to create the project file (I assume that a preset is not correct), and if any settings need to be changed when I attempt to export an AVI file of the edited video?

I've heard that H.264 is not the most editing-friendly format, but I'm hoping that I just have an incorect setting that causes it to be choppy. I tried playing with the settings (DV vs. Video for Windows, manually setting the frame size, interlace and progressive) but cannot make it non-choppy.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[poisondeathray]

you won't be able to with your computer, and your current software if you intend to do native editing

editors add extra overhead, and current software (with the exception of 2 so far) isn't very well optimized; just because it plays fine in a media player means absolutely nothing for smooth editing.

with CS5 and a better GFX card you will be able to, or edius neo 2.5 - both these have better optimized software and can leverage the graphics card better. Edius doesn't require a high end card

most people in your shoes would shell out for cineform neoscene , which would be a lot cheaper than upgrading to cs5

[edDV]

Premiere Pro 1.0 is very old (introduced 2003). It won't handle h.264.

You could try external conversion to YUY2 or RGB and then to Huffyuv at a bit rate your video drive will handle.

You could try the Cineform Neoscene demo but it is only spec'd to operate with CS3 or later.
http://www.cineform.com/neoscene/specifications.php