Adobe Premiere CS3 supporting AVCHD!
 

Surprised nobody posted this yet:
Adobe - Adobe Press Room: For immediate release

How well machines perform editing native AVCHD is still questionable! But at least another piece of my puzzle has been formed! Now if computers can't handle editing the format well, I'd like to see some kind of video card or maybe cards from Matrox natively handle the processing of AVCHD.

Hi Matt,

The press release mentions a preview of "the next generation" of their software, which I take to mean CS4. Exciting news either way

Jeff Pulera

Editing native AVCHD is horrendously slow even on a 4-core MAC, according to an Adobe technician and beta tester today at IBC. Everything goes, but at a snail's pace. For decent editing an 8-core is about the minimum.

Or, perhaps even better would be to wait until the new faster Macs come out......

-Darren

I tried editing some HMC 150 footage last night on Sony Vegas 7.0d and it was a no go. Wouldn't recognize it at all. I will install 8.0c tonight and try again. VLC wouldnt play it either for some reason.

I used Ulead MF6+ to get the footage on 3XDVD for my HD-DVD player for a test viewing. It took 1 hour 40 minutes to process 2 minutes of video, must have re-rendered, but MF6+ dosen't really tell you whats happening.

I will report back after trying 8.0c.

I have heard the later versions of Vegas will edit HMC150 footage. I have also heard about it requiring some odd hacks to work (shuffling .dll files etc.).

Edius is another choice that will edit this footage natively. You can even download a free trial version from the Grass Valley website. BTW, when I say edit "natively" that doesn't mean smooth 30fps playback of timelines. It plays back slow, depending on your machine's specs.

CS4 sounds like the best thing to come along for editing this footage. I'm pretty firmly commited to Final Cut Studio 2 though, so transcoding to ProRes is my workflow till Apple updates FCS.

Apple, are you listening? Please give us native AVCHD editing!!!