I am trying to see if I can work with MTS files on what I have. I've got a G5 with 10.4.11 (working on upgrading, I know), and an Intel Macbook 2008 with Leopard.
I need a free solution.
Research on Google shows so far that the only free solution is to use a program to rewrap it to m4v and then open it in Streamclip and convert (in my case, probably to DVCPro since my FCP is too old for ProRes. Not sure yet about AIC).
Here are my questions:
1) Does anyone have a better solution that is free?
2) Should I expect a loss of image quality this way?
3) My Macbook, as far as I am aware, does not have a dedicated video card? Does file conversion ,through these conversion programs, use the video card itself or does it just rewrite the file without that? Would converting files like that tax my Macbook too heavily?

I doubt there would be a solution that would allow me to convert on my G5, with TIger, although I still plan to do some more research on that.

Suggestions? I've got to let this guy know right way. Anyone have experience with this? And I'm still searching this and other forums for answers as well.
Thanks =)

Hmmm... no one? Does anyone know if I find a solution to convert and do it on my Macbook 2008, will it fry the system?
i'm going to re-post this in a higher traffic forum, also, it's partly a system resources question. Apologies for the double-post.

Is upgrading to FCP7+ an option?

That's my preferred way of doing it. I just "Log and Transfer" cards at the end of a day shooting.

I believe a G5 machine might be able to deal with HD video, if it is not too compressed. I also believe a 2008 MB (we don't know the processor, or the speed, but I'll assume it is C2D running at some 2GHz, and 2GM of RAM) can handle MTS and transcode over into ProRes, AIC or similar.

Four years ago (i.e. in 2008), I have bought my first AVCHD camcorder and was happily editing HD video inside iMovie on my then rather current Macs.

Hmmm... no one? Does anyone know if I find a solution to convert and do it on my Macbook 2008, will it fry the system?
i'm going to re-post this in a higher traffic forum, also, it's partly a system resources question. Apologies for the double-post.

If it helps, I have a late 2007 MacBook Pro with 4GB and it'll handle this kind of conversion - it's not very quick, but that's only to be expected. As to how, I use a combination of Clipwrap and StreamClip. I don't use the MBP very often for this, but when I do, it's OK