HDLink coversion versus rendering
 

Is there any difference in the resultant files if .m2t files are loaded onto the time line and rendered using the Cineform codec versus converting them with HDLink?

HDLINK is a lot faster, and quicker to batch convert all the files. The quality would be the same inthe export from Premiere but just take a bit longer.

The flipside is that if you do a rough edit before rendering the intermediates, the render could actually end up being a lot SHORTER.