Even with a Quad Core machine, editing of raw .mts (AVCHD) files from my Canon HF100 in PP CS4 is not smooth. Now, I understand that I am not gaining anything in terms of image quality by capturing via HDMI and Intensity Pro to Cineform HD (Prospect), as the signal is already highly compressed. But am I LOSING anything by doing this? Certainly the smoother Cineform workflow would be a plus (as soon as they release a PP CS4-compatible version).
On a related note: Any thoughts on quality gain going from HF100 (17 Mbps) to the forthcoming HF S100 (24 Mbps)? I am tempted to throw the former on the auction block soon...

You are not losing anything if you capturing pre-compressed data from HDMI vs directly converting to CineForm, both decompressed the 1920x1080 to 4:2:2 YUV, and the CineForm encoder is the same in both setups. Of course for live captures to CineForm from the HDMI feed does have a significant quality advantage.

As for 17Mbs vs 24Mbps, the more the better.

Thanks for your reply, David. How's that ProspectHD version 4 coming along?
;)