Importing .mts files not nested in original camera folder structure

Question

The short version:
Is there any way to import .mts files already copied to a hard drive, without keeping the camera's folder structure intact, into Premiere Pro CS5.5?
The long version:
I recently purchased an iMac. For years I edited video on Windows using Sony Vegas and Vegas Home Studio. My camera, the Panasonic Lumix TS2, shoots AVCHD video. Vegas has no problem importing and editing AVCHD .mts files from a camera or a hard drive so it wasn't until I attempted to edit some video in Premiere Pro, recieved the "unsupported compressions type" error message and did some searching that I realized folder structure is so critial to working with AVCHD. From what I can tell, the files have to be in the PRIVATE>AVCHD>BDMV>STREAM>xxxxxxx.mts confirguration to be imported via the media browser.
Here is my situation, I have hundreds of .mts files in separate folders, bundled together with photos from the same day or event. I'm on an iMac i7, using an activated version of Premiere Pro CS5.5 from the Master Collection. Is there any way I can import and edit these files natively? And in the future, is there any way around transferring the entire folder structure everytime I want to copy the video files to my hard drive? I use Bridge to import photos and it will just pull the video files off the card and plop them in the same folder. Having to transfer the videos separately seems like a silly work around in our modern age. Thanks for any help you can provide.

Answer 1

Yo! I used to have this problem for about 1 year!! And fixed it about half a year ago and I have never been as happy when I fixed it!
Be sure that your sequence settings are set to the right settings: When you create a new sequence you should be promped with a window asking what settings you want. Open the "AVCHD" folder and there should be 3 folders; 1080p, 1080i, 720p. Pick the one that you filmed at, I film at 1080p, so I open that folder and then you pick the right setting to what you filmed your scene. I film at 24 fps so i pick AVCHD 1080p24 (non-anamorphic). Now there should be a new sequence with the right settings (don't use the same settings as I do unless you have filmed at the same frame rate and that it was filmed at 1080p or 1080i, there is a big difference between "p" and "i"). If you go in to the window in the bottom left corner there should be a tab on that box that says "Media Browser". Click it and the directory to your computer should be shown. If you have your SD card connected there should be something called SD card (or if you have renamed it then it is obvious what you should select). After selecting it there should be a folder called AVCHD and you open it up. This is where it gets tricky... because I don't know what camera you use and don't have any experience with your camera then you will have to go through all the folders that are within the AVCHD folder. They are not so many but in the folder where all the clips are hidden they should be called 00626.mts for example. Then you just select the clips you want to import and import them. This process can also be done by opening Finder (mac) or on PC just open up the same way and select the clips you want and drag them i to your project window
Then if you drag a clip in to the sequence, this is were you see if you did all the steps right (with the sequence settings) then the light above the clip should be yellow, meaning that the playback engine recognizes the format and can play it back without any compression Therefor giving you much better quality videos!
Hope this helps, I know the pain you are going through, don't want it to happen to anyone else