.m2ts

Theoretically it is possible edit .m2ts with FCP without transcoding to AIC. Practically however it is either too hard to create the workflow (mainly because software is lacking on OSX) or may be even impossible - FCP errors out ("Not enough memory") and crash on .h264 muxed to .mp4 with both ffmpeg and mp4box (thus it gotta be the stream de-muxed with xport that is bad)...

On Windows, CS3 doesn't recognize AC3 audio (even with ac3filter.net installed) and 2ch AC3 is what AVCHD camcoders capture, CS3 have no problem with PCM audio (FCP could import .AC3 as well as PCM)... So it is possible to edit .m2ts even with CS3, yet frameserving is slow, disk space is cheap and on 720p->480p transcode with video filters in post, saving to lossless Logarithm is twice as fast as frameserving... pretty much means that CS4 could be better using "saving to Logarithm" workflow. Logarithm takes about 2GB per 1.5 minute of 720p@30.

AVCHD cameras lay down h264 at 12-17Mbps. Those streams could be transcoded to 2-4Mbps (720p24) at about 5+xT or 4-6Mbps (1080p24) at ???xT. Transcoding may or may not make sense for Aiptek's 4Mbps 720p30, but it makes a lot of sense for AVCHD, so CS3 or CS4 is the editor of choice for AVCHD (especially considering that AVCHD is not supported natively in FCP and workflow on Mac sucks and need Windows for post anyways)

Aipteks clips that don't need color correction and post could still be edited in FCP, but once I am done playing with what could and can not be done in post, better workflow would still be CS4 keeping originals and may be figuring out how to interchange projects between CS4 and FCP.

So overall it looks like CS4 is the editor of choice that is when it would work

• 4.0.0 cannot export to Encoder on either XP or Vista
• 4.0.1 update - broke Encoder for good - infamous runtime error on Vista (MBP) after "failed to update encoder" on both Vista and XP
• playback is choppy on both Vista and XP (EEE is at 100% CPU, verify on MBP and emachine)

So overall even with CS4 there is no AVCHD workflow yet... Once FCP would support AVCHD natively the best workflow would be - do cuts in FCP, export XML and do post in CS4 (since CS4 is so much easier), but where we stand today, compared to CS4 FCP lacks

1. Native .m2ts support
2. applying effects without re-rendering
3. Soundbooth like tools for post on sound (Soundtrack doesn't have spectral view)
4. Mastering of .m2ts - don't really need it, but hey
5. 30xT for rendering 720p30 to not very efficient h264... Apple native needs more Mbps then x264 and is slower??? (hmm, my 720p workflow (without post) on Q takes about 5xT, but Q is about 2-3 times faster.... still would make workflow run 10xT-15xT vs. 30xT for Apple, so it is slower at least two times).
6. Freesoft muxer, encoders, etc are lacking on Mac.

FCE lacks compared to FCP

• ability to edit in anything but AIC - this is the only Sequence setting apart from DV
• export XML - no way to export to do post in CS4 without re-encoding to AIC

Pinnacle is a funny one (SONY is even worse, but hey SONY is known for not being capable of writing software) and lacks everything when it comes to editing, so it cannot be considered as an editor, only as non-transcoding mastering app, but it lacks it too - always transcoding to 1440x1080@30 when mastering either AVCHD or Blueray. Recently added to Pinnacle support for QuickTime .mov is useless - "enables exporting a project created in Pinnacle Studio to a QuickTime .mov file using DV, MPEG4 or MJPEG codecs and up to a resolution of 1024x576" (MPEG4 means non-AVC MPEG4 and since resolutions are lower it means transcode anyhow)