hi, believe Movie Studio Platinum 9.0b doesn't allow importing avchd in 720 line resolution. I'm thinking about buying this water-proof camcorder:
Sanyo Xacti CA9; the video format:
ISO standard MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 (.MP4), HD-SHQ: 1280 x 720 (30 fps/ 9Mbps).

Is there any easy way around this problem?

Have you tried it? I see no reason why it would not import it assuming the proper codec is available. If they have some sample clips perhaps you could download one and test it before you buy one.

I went to Vimeo and did a search for 'Sanyo Xacti CA9'.
The most recent clip so tagged was found here:
Sanyo Xacti VPC-CA9 Waterproof Test in Fish Tank on Vimeo

I downloaded the original clip and verified with VLC that it is 1280 x 720 29.97 fps ~9 Mbps MPEG4.
I created a quickie project and dropped the video into the Vegas Movie Studio 9 Pro Pack timeline.
It previews just fine.

I then dropped a media effect on it (Brightness + Contrast) and tweaked slightly for grins.
It's rendering as I write this. So IMO it works just fine with this camera.

hi, believe Movie Studio Platinum 9.0b doesn't allow importing avchd in 720 line resolution. I'm thinking about buying this water-proof camcorder:
Sanyo Xacti CA9; the video format:
ISO standard MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 (.MP4), HD-SHQ: 1280 x 720 (30 fps/ 9Mbps).

Is there any easy way around this problem?

Not really. Vegas Movie Studio Platinum does not natively support 720-line HD video at all. If it even allows the import of 720p video, it will try to convert it to 1080i.

Can't speak for H264 720, but VMSP 9 with the addition of a Mainconcept MJPEG codec, (which is free but unless you paid for it would put a watermark on output if you actually wanted to output in this format) happily runs 720 30p MJPEG footage from my Canon TX1, so I suspect it would also handle H264 720p with the right codec.

I went to Vimeo and did a search for 'Sanyo Xacti CA9'.
The most recent clip so tagged was found here:
I downloaded the original clip and verified with VLC that it is 1280 x 720 29.97 fps ~9 Mbps MPEG4.
I created a quickie project and dropped the video into the Vegas Movie Studio 9 Pro Pack timeline.
It previews just fine.

I then dropped a media effect on it (Brightness + Contrast) and tweaked slightly for grins.
It's rendering as I write this. So IMO it works just fine with this camera.
thanks, I just tried it after reading your post: Movie Studio indeed imports these files without problems. Although you can't save the final clip in the same format, it upscales to 1080 pretty nicely. I probably would want to upscale it anyway, so it all works fine.