I stumbled upon this if you dont mind the slight quality loss.
AVCHD UpShift easily convert your AVCHD files into high-quality MPEG | NewBlueFX (http://www.newbluefx.com/avchd-upshift.html)

What's the point? Better to convert to a intra-frame format, if you need to transcode. MPEG-2 is another inter-frame lossy codec. Besides, you can do such conversion in AME.

I stumbled upon this if you dont mind the slight quality loss.
AVCHD UpShift easily convert your AVCHD files into high-quality MPEG | NewBlueFX (http://www.newbluefx.com/avchd-upshift.html)
Waist of money, if you machine cant handle avchd then consider Cineform. Much better solution.

Waist of money, if you machine cant handle avchd then consider Cineform. Much better solution.

One note about exporting from Premiere to Cineform:

Be aware that the free Cineform Studio does not have the correct plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro. Only the paid versions of the Cineform software have the plugiin.

Cinefrom Studio cannot convert AVCHD just mp4, as it is designed for the GoPro.

Thanks. The free version is intended for users of GoPro cameras to begin with.

To be honest I have had a lot of problems with Cineform and I am not getting a really smooth editing experiance with native this is a nice cheap STABLE solution. Its not for everyone there is a quality loss but theres also no plug-in so its more stable. I may not use it depends on what CS 6 brings.

I have been using cineform since CS4 without a problem.
Do you use CF preset and player or Adobe preset and player?

You can already do this with Adobe. Just load all your footage into Media Encoder and batch convert to mpeg2 50 mbps mxf format with 4:2:2 color. Just as easy and it is free. Well not so much free but you already have it. If you want higher you can always make your own preset in ME of the mpeg2 to go up to 300 mbps.

You can also do the same with the AVCHD-Intra format in ME which is very high quality and scrubs faster then any other format in CS5.5 on my 17" MBP.