.xmp files
 

I'm using premiere elements 4 and notice that it produces an xmp file for each clip I download.

As a stills photographer, I see xmp files appearing in Lightroom with my RAW files, and these files contain information about what I do to the raw files, however, they do not appear until I actually do something to the raw file (eg change exposure, crop, etc). With the video files they are there immediately.

Do these files serve the same function for video clips? If so, do I need them for files I haven't done anything with in post? When I imported clip without an xmp file, it took a while to index it, and conform it, before allowing me to use it. But the same happened with a file that did have an xmp file, so my impression was that there wasn't any relevant information in the xmp file.

BTW - what is conforming anyway?

Thanks