So I was hired to shoot a project in HDV, then hand the footage over to an editor to edit. Since I capture using a firestore plugged into my camera I copied the *.m2t files onto data DVD's to give the editor. Only a few minutes after delivering the files, the editor calls me to inform me his FCP system can use the files. He sees all the files there, but says final cut pro doesn't no what to do with them. These are the original files from the firestore, unaltered.

Is he doing something wrong, or is there really no way to open *.m2t files in final cut pro? Right now I'm in the process of transcoding everything to quick time, but its going to take hours. What is a normal workflow for FCP and HDV?

Unfortunately, FCP doesn't recognize the .M2T files... You could get MPEGStreamClip (available from http://www.squared5.com/ for both Macs and PCs) for the PC to convert the files to Quicktime .MOVs using the AIC or the HDV codecs for most reasonable quality vs size.