What is the best way to convert T2i video files? (using Adobe Premiere CS4)
Many of you will recommend Neoscene, which is a little bit pricey.
Is there any other software that is less expensive?

Mpeg Streamclip. Squared 5 - MPEG Streamclip video converter for Mac and Windows (http://www.squared5.com/) - it's free.

Interesting. Can you confirm this imports the .mov files. On the basic description on their site, they don't list that container among the import formats, although they do list mpeg 4, so I'm assuming it will work.

I am a Cineform neoscene user, and a very happy one to a point. My only issue is that there is no VFW codec installed for encoding Cineform straight from Vegas, so I can't do smart rendering ( I assume that's what's required)

For simple edits where there is no grading or effects, I don't see why I should have to re-encode all the frames, which is time consuming.

I'll try Mpeg Streamclip tonight and give an update later.

I edit H264 straight to my Avid Media Composer 4.0.5.5.
But for users of Avid Streamclip is very known.
And the latest (beta) version is even better than before.

I'm sure it is excellent software, however, speed of editing is not the only reason for using an intermediate format.

Because of the native 4.2.0 colour space of the 550d .mov files, you will degrade the fidelity of the footage much more by processing it than would be the case if it is upsampled to 4.2.2. This can lead to banding and aliasing.

Even if the original signal does not contain as much colour bandwidth as 4.2.2 material, you still get higher fidelity results by using an upsampled intermediate format, especially one that is wavelet based like Cineform.

I don't know what are you referring to but I don't see any banding at all. Aliasing is here even before editing in some cases.

free sound good, I will try Mpeg Streamclip tonight. Thanks Aaron

You might wanna also look at using the Avid DNxHD codec to use with it - Avid DNxHD Codec (http://broadcastautomation.com/dnxhd/). Be aware, I tried using this with CS3 and it didn't work (others had the same issue). It is supposed to work well with CS4 and FCP (although I use NeoScene).

Can you elaborate on how you would use DNxHD?
I downloaded and installed the Windows version.

I took this from somewhere else on the 7D forum (it is worth looking on there for tips with the t2i/550d as well since they are nearly identical:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eos-7d-hd/471042-step-step-mpeg-streamclip.html

and

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eos-7d-hd/470896-best-workflow.html

Cheers
Aaron

You might wanna also look at using the Avid DNxHD codec to use with it - Avid DNxHD Codec (http://broadcastautomation.com/dnxhd/). Be aware, I tried using this with CS3 and it didn't work (others had the same issue). It is supposed to work well with CS4 and FCP (although I use NeoScene).

I tried DNxHD. It's a great codec for quality, and I'm sure it protects fidelity during resampling, but there is no comparison to Cineform performance wise.

Can you elaborate on how you would use DNxHD?
I downloaded and installed the Windows version.

I got it working with Streamclip:

Squared 5 - MPEG Streamclip video converter for Mac and Windows (http://www.squared5.com/)

Export to quicktime
Set the codec to DNxHD
Quality slider to 100
Settings -> choose output format, I chose 36mb/s, because I don't need 175 and don't want giant files.
(The DNxHD settings screen has a buggy layout on my machine, you might need to use tab to navigate around, and alt+down arrow to show the list options)

The files load fine in Vegas, but it's not as smooth as editing Cineform on my dual core laptop, although it is smoother than editing the original files.

The other problem is that the DNxHD files don't open in any of my video players. I tried Media player classic, VLC and WMP.

All in all, Cineform proves worth the money again!

Anyone should know though that QT films with DNxHD codec will not work on a computer without that codec. For me that I edit on MC is easy to have backups of my films using this codec.