I have two questions.
 

1. When saving a trimmed project in Premiere Pro CS3, do the files get recompressed or are they merely trimmed as it would seem from the name of the process. I do not want to lose any quality.

2. Can you then take the trimmed files, convert, and replace them with Cineform?

1) CineForm files are trimmed, it is a lossless process.

2) I don't understand this part, if you start with CineForm file you get CineForm files as a result in your trimmed project. If you did start with CineForm files you need to contact the vendor of those files.

Thanks, for your reply. Here is what I am trying to do. I have about 18 hours of HDV footage to use in a project that will get quit a bit of effects applied to it.

That footage is on my hard drive now. It needs to be culled down to an hour and a half. What I want to do is create a project that I can sit down with the director and go thru and get the cuts he wants to use in the movie.

Then save a trimmed version, convert that to Cineform for the final edit. As I understand it the Cineform files are a lot bigger and would take a lot of space this would result in me only having to have space for the couple hours of Cineform files instead of the 18 hours converted from the HDV footage. My concern was that when I trim the HDV project that I not lose any quality in those files, and that I would be able to replace the HDV files with Cineform files for the final edit.

You may want to experiment with replacing project files with differing formats, ie; replacing an MPEG with an AVI.

If I remember correctly, that could be a hurdle to your proposed workflow.

Good point, I will give that a try.