How to Import AVCHD Footage into Premiere Pro CC 2018

Published January 15, 2019 · Updated October 22, 2019

There are a few tutorials out there that suggest all you do is right click the video file inside your AVCHD file folder and use Adobe Premiere Pro Creative Cloud to import the footage, but even if it works – it didn’t for me – it’s not the right way to do it.

The right way is to use Adobe Media Encoder to convert the file to another format before importing. And the simple reason is that the direct video file inside your AVCHD folder is a compressed file. You have to convert it to edit with the best, uncompressed version of the video.

Open Media Encoder > Go to AVCHD folder and select file
Drag and drop files into the Queue window (right)
Select link under “Format” to open settings
Choose the file Format and Preset (in my case – pictured below – Quicktime/Custom and under Video: Apple ProRes 422 (for Mac))
Select OK

Change name and output location, if necessary, and then select the green “Play” button in the top right corner.