A better workflow with h.264 files?

Hello!
Sorry for asking a total newbie question.
I am just starting to deal with video editing.
Ma camera is Sanyo Xacti.
My video is H.264, 1920X1080,
My first question is:
When working with Final Cut Pro where i had first to convert my footage to Apple Prores 422 codec to edit. It was fine but all this rendering business in FCP every time you want to try a new effect on a videofile or transition or something else really pisses me out. I come from the world of Professional Audio where the process is real-time and rather fast. Is the workflow in Premiere similar and after every operation you have to suffer from rendering? Can i preview the effects without rendering? These things are crucial to me, because with all this time-consuming rendering the creative fun goes away.
My second queston is:
From what i read about Premiere Pro CS5, i undestand that now i dont need to convert H.264 files and can work in this program without any additional conversion of these files. But i also read that this codec can be demanding on the computer. I use Mac Pro 8-core with 4 GB RAM. Will it be enough to edit my files in Premiere Pro CS5 as they are or it would be better to convert them first to some friendlier format (without quality loss, if possible)?
Thank you!

While I agree with Harm that things would go even more smoothly with more RAM, I'll add that you should be just fine with the H.264 footage from your XACTI. Premiere Pro handles AVCHD and H.264 quite well. If you set up your sequence right (the easiest way is just to drag the file icon and drop it onto the new sequence button), you will be able to playback without render. Once you start adding complicated effects, that may slow down playback a bit but you won't need to stop and re-render every few minutes. I moved to Premiere Pro from Final Cut Express for exactly the reason you describe and I've been very happy with it. I'm on a Macbook Pro with 8GB of Ram, but I just upgraded to 8 and when I had only 4GB I could still go through my footage and apply basic effects just fine without the need to render.

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James,
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Hey,
for my work I have to use hours of .flv files daily. These are VODs from Twitch which I have to edit. Being stream related content these files often get "corrupted" because of internet connection/Twitch problems. In the .flv files this is not really a problem - most of the time you see a brief stutter but everything else is fine. Now I obviously can not import .flv files into Premiere Pro CC so I used FLV Extract to export a .aac and .264 file from the FLV container. These files import just fine into Premiere Pro but the main problem here is that when working with a .264 file the previews render VERY slow and often red frames appear. Also when exporting a file it takes MUCH time and barely uses my CPU at all (tested with other files and formats and they worked just fine).
It is also interesting to note that the .aac and .264 files have different lengths and thus get out of sync. How much depends on the source .flv file (most likely how much it got corrupted due to various reasons?)
My PC specs are 32 GB RAM, GeForce GTX760 Video Card, I7-4790 CPU & 3 7200 RPM HDDs
Media Info
Original .flv file
General
Complete name                            : E:\Projects\0.flv
Format                                   : Flash Video
File size                                : 237 MiB
Duration                                 : 30mn 1s
Overall bit rate                         : 1 101 Kbps
Tagged date                              : UTC 2014-06-10 20:38:05
Tagging application                      : flvmeta 1.1-r213
Video
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 4 frames
Codec ID                                 : 7
Duration                                 : 30mn 1s
Bit rate                                 : 941 Kbps
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 29.970 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.015
Stream size                              : 208 MiB (88%)
Audio
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                           : LC
Codec ID                                 : 10
Duration                                 : 30mn 1s
Bit rate                                 : 125 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : 24ms
Stream size                              : 28.4 MiB (12%)
.264 file
General
Complete name                            : E:\Projects\0.264
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
File size                                : 207 MiB
Video
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 4 frames
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Variable
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
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I also tried using FFMPEG to change the container from .flv to .mp4 which worked and resulted in me being able to import the files into Premiere Pro but even though the video and audio track had the same length this time - they were still out of sync and much more difficult to re-sync them if at all possible so this didn't help much. I also tried video converter programs to convert to other file formats but the out of sync problem still carried over.
So as an alternative question: is there any way to convert the original .flv files properly so I am able to import and work with them? Meaning they are still in sync and keep the original quality.
The solutions should be as efficient as possible (quick) since I have to go through hours of content every day.
I am very grateful to anyone trying to help. It is VERY much appreciated. Thanks.
(for a test file you can download a flv file using www.twitchtools.com with the video link http://www.twitch.tv/trumpsc/b/537543702 - a corrupted part that ALWAYS speeds up is in the first few minutes (if you download part 7) when he opens the arena rewards when the key comes down)

I very much appreciate the help. Sorry for any lack of clarity or apparent density on my part. Up late last night.
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http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7309534#7309534

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