VoltaicHD
I downloaded the trial for VoltaicHD to see whether it would be a better alternative to the Final Cut Express import process for AVCHD files (or even if it would be useful for converting AVCHD files that aren't recognizable by FCE.) Note: the demo is good for 10 conversions, with a maximum file size of 50MB First the good news: It converts .MTS files (native AVCHD files) no matter where they are, so that's a big plus over FCE and will be useful for archiving .MTS files. I copied a .MTS file from the camera card onto the Desktop and then successfully converted it. The program has a simple, but intuitive interface; drag the files into a list, where you can select them if you want to transfer them, and you can see a preview of the first frame of the clip by clicking the Details button. There's no In and Out point selection as there is in FCE, but I can live with that. The bad news: it takes much, much longer than FCE to do the conversion. A 15 second clip took FCE 32 seconds