1080P 60FPS (AVCHD 2.0) and Sony NEX-5N

Question

I want to work with the video files I'm capturing with my new camera.  I have Premiere Elements 9.   When I start a new project, there are no profiles under DLSR or AVCHD that match the specs I'm shooting at.
I can choose 720P 60FPS and it loads and plays smoothly in the project window, but I'm concerned I'm going to lose something when I render the final output.
Does Premiere 10 have more up to date AVCHD profiles?  Do I have to upgrade and spend another $80 to use this software (or downgrade my video shooting specs)?
Any insight would be appreciated.

Answer 1

A while back I hacked the Preset XML files to add some custom video-modes (this was before Adobe officially supported 1280x720 24fps and 1920x1080 24fps) to Premiere Elements 7 and Premiere Elements 8.  I created a video-editing preset for 1920 x 1080 60p (and 50p.) 
Although it seemed to work, it turns it that creating the 1080p60 editing preset wasn't really necessary.  Just create a video-project using the 1920x1080 30p preset (or even the 1920x1080 30 interlaced.)  When you edit 1080p60 source videos in the project, the editing-accuracy will be +/- 2 frames instead of +/-1 frame-edit.  (So you lose single-frame accuracy, but unless you're doing a lot of short-action splices, it's not a big loss.)  However, Premiere's editing-engine preserves all the frames in the source-video, out to the final render.
So in simple terms, your output video will retain all the frames of the source video.  The output-video won't be degraded to 30fps; every frame will be there and it'll be true 60p.
Unfortunately, there are some practical problems.  For one thing, only 1-2 of Adobe's video export options support 1920x1080p60.  AVCHD 2.0 isn't supported, so you there's no way to export your edited video back to 1080p60 AVCHD footage.  The only option is
(1) export to Windows Media Video (it does support 1080p60, but you have to play around with the advanced options to select this frame-rate and fps...it's not one of the built-in presets.)
(2) MPEG/H264 (MPEG-4) - this requires a little effort to get to
    Share -> Export -> "Mobile Phones and Players" -> "iPod and iPhone"
    Then click on "Advanced Properties", and manually change these settings:
    Level:  4.2
     Profile: High
     Frame Rate [fps] = 59.94  (yes, that's the correct rate for NTSC)
     Frame Width 1920
     Frame Height 1080
      TV Standard NTSC
     Bitrate settings
      Bitrate Encoding:  CBR   (VBR has never worked correctly for me)
      Bitrate [Mbps] : 28Mbps   (lower number takes up less space, higher number has better quality)
     Select Key Frame Distance
      Key frame Distance: 30 frames  (higher number takes up less space, lower number has better random access)
Hope that helps...
I'm still on Premiere Elements 9.   I may download the Trial for 10, and hack together the editing-preset for 1080p50/60.
[edit]
My post was wrong.  In Premiere Elements 10, it's easy to create your own MPEG-4 file-export for 1080p50/60.  Just go to "Share -> Computer -> AVCHD", then select one of the "MP4" presets.  Example: "MP4 - H264 1920x1080p 30". Enter the "Advanced Properties", and change the settings as I showed above.
Message was edited by: gvimuser