I use Adobe Media Encoder for transcoding from MTS to MOV(DNxHD) for editing at Avid MC. But you can go that way for another NLE too.

Perhaps this one is interesting, its open source/free-ware
http://www.lightworksbeta.com
Q4 2011, AVC-Intra support
Q1 and Q2 2012 Full 64 bit support

3rd Party Support
Inscriber Title-motion
Boris
Combustion
After Effects
Premiere Plugins (for who wants ColorGHear TOOLKIT but dosent have adobe :idea:
Digital Fusion
Sapphire

Tech Specs
http://www.lightworksbeta.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=108&Itemid=247

@rozroz

yes. Unique timecode is important when you use the same reel name for different clips (for instance for all clips from one SD card or from one shooting session). Avid MC always refers to reel names (Tape-IDs) rather than clip names. This is why reel names are mandatory. One can argue whether or not this is a good thing (me personally I think it is a very good thing). But it's a basic of Avid MC's design.

Now, if you have for example 10 clips in one folder (folder = reel), all beginning with TC 01:00:00:00 (or whatever), you will edit with 10 different clips from the same reel (with the same Tape-ID) and all use the same timecode. Export an EDL (or AAF) and back-import your color graded footage and Avid won't know exactly how to relink.

@towi

That's ok, I'm just being lazy :)

I shall find a good renaming method and report back for Windows users

@towi Excellent Towi, I've been trying to work out a good workflow for my Symphony. Just one question; how do you best suggest batch renaming the original MTS files?

@brianluce, for proxies in Vegas I use Mainconcept MPEG-2, GOP length=6, b-frames=2, VBR 15/10/2 Mbps, main profile @ high level, MTS, and a resolution and frame rate matching the source files. I don't think the encoding parameters matter so much for proxies, except that using a low bit rate makes video decoding faster, and using a shorter GOP speeds up seeking.

@sohus I use a PC with Sony Vegas / Adobe Audition.

You are right that it is very important to have a convention (regardless of the project size, really).

Thinking of my most recent video-only project, where I had 30 different musical items gathered from three parts of a live concert, using 3 cameras and a 24 track master audio file, once you start editing you run the risk of accidentally deleting an item and / or not finding it unless you have a convention, so here's mine, using that project as an example:

1. All of the unedited video and audio capture files and the rough master mixdowns for each part of the concert are kept in a set of "captures" folders.
   
   The 24-track audio rough mixdowns (recorded in Adobe Audition) and their associated multitrack source files were named "Part1.ses", Part2.ses" and part3.ses and kept with the original 24 audio wav recordings in their own "audio" subfolder of "captures".
   
   With the camera files imported into the pc I tend to use a naming convention of item / camera person / camera + "raw" (for example caledonia_ali_xha1_raw.mts, which is the item "Caledonia" shot by Ali on my XHA1 camera and it's the raw ingested footage, or part1_gh2_raw0000.mts / part1_gh2_raw0001mts etc, in the case of my long, fixed GH2 shots which ran for the length of each of the three parts of the concert). I name them by hand as there aren't that many of them, and they all sit in a "video" subfolder of "captures"
2. At a level above the captures folder, I created a word document which had the concert running order and all my camera directions (useful to find your way around the edit) and then created separate folders for each of the 30 or so individual musical items as I started editing each one.
3. Once editing has commenced on an item, I start an individual folder and all the items associated with that edit (apart from the audio and video captures) go into that folder. For example, the item "Caledonia" will include rendered files (in various states of completeness), audio mixdowns (eg Caledonia.wav) and the individual Adobe Audition audio .ses files (eg caledonia.ses) which generated the mixdowns, plus the vegas .veg file for that item (eg caledonia.veg). If any item is still "work in progress" I add "WIP" in the filename to alert me to the fact that it's a work in progress, not finished yet.

For rendered output files I've found it's really useful to incorporate the render settings in the filename. As an example, in the folder for the finished item "Caledonia", the rendered file caledonia_vimeo_25p_8H6A4L_44k1_2pass.m2t will tell me most of what I need to know about the settings I used to create it (ie, that it was destined for Vimeo upload, rendered at 25p, VBR at 8mbps high, 6 Average and 4 Low, with 44.1k audio all in a 2-pass render). In addition, in Sony Vegas I use has the same naming convention for the render preset which created this file, and that has two advantages:

• If the output file works OK say in Vimeo, then I can apply the render preset to other materials and know roughly that it's going to work just as well, and
• To name the output files, to save typing the details each time, I just copy the name of the preset and then add the item name to the front and that becomes my output filename.

All of this make life easier when you have to keep track of a load of different items within one project, all at various stages in the editing process, and it also means you will think twice if you are about to delete something from the "captures" folder.

Hope that helps to think of some of the issues around file naming and management. It's something I've evolved using my particular platform and software, to keep track of projects.

EDIT:

This becomes much more important if you have publication assets (web sites / DVD covers / posters etc) associated with your video project. For a REALLY big project, and I'm thinking here of one a few years ago which was a 46-item DVD, a book and a website, you can create an uber-document, ideally an Excel spreadsheet which has links to the different files / assets. You open that and use it as your "way in" to each editing session, by listing on it all the various items and making each into a link so you just click on it to open the video / photoshop / audio project associated with that item. With Excel you can use colours to indicate the readiness of each item (ie red / yellow / green). This becomes a fantastic way of keeping track of a multimedia project which spans several different software programs when the individual items are in various stages of completion (and you can use another worksheet within the same Excel document to keep track of project finances / deadlines / permissions / replication costs etc).

@balazer
what mpeg2 setting do you use for proxies?

@balazer Thank you - I have one current project that isn't too bad but really ran into problems with lots of stuff where I was using various plugins in a previous project. Next time I get one like that I'll give the proxy thing a go.

Do other people have V-sync issues in Avid MC 6? When I playback video, the image is not always in sync which creates virtual lines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing
This might be done to keep up the framerate while playing back video. I don't have this issue in PP 5.5 or FCPX (I do have it in FCPX if I set playback resolution to lower quality). Just want to know if this is normal behaviour or wrong. I have an iMac 27", 3.4Ghz i7, 2GB ATI GPU, 12GB RAM. Should be good enough!

@balazer Does proxy editing really make a difference on Vegas? I was going to try it but was wondering whether it's any better than (say) using a low quality preview instead? Or are there some operations where a proxy works better?

@mozes, I didn't trust Proxy Stream to be renaming files by itself in an active project, especially since it was written for an older version of Vegas. That's why I was renaming the folders myself. But thanks for letting me know it works.