Poor performance playing .mts files in source monitor

Question

OK is Adobe really that far behind in writing up some code that can handle AVCHD .mts files? I transfer the .mts files from my camera to the hard drive, access them in PP via the media browser, import them to the project panel and when I try to play any of them back in the source monitor, playback is just plain shoddy, piss poor, horrible. I get some stutter (playback stops for a sec then resumes) but mostly what I notice is allot of noise in the video or pixelation, random blocks of pixels jump all over the video. Sorry I don't know how else to explain. I know that converting the .mts files to a lossless format first is the most common response but then where is the time saved with this whole format? Just curious if anyone has any input or maybe some hardware tweaks that might help.
Hardware:
AMD 6400+ dual core proc
6MB RAM
2 GT8800 512MB GPUs
Vista 64bit loaded on 1GB 7200 rpm SATA II HD
Scratch Discs are 4 SATA 80GB 7200rpm in RAID 0

Answer 1

My two cents on all this. I've only been editing for 2 yrs so I'm no expert but my experience is this. High Def formats are resource intensive already, you start adding in transitions, motion graphics, color correction and render times can go off the charts. Most people I talk to or see in the forums are pretty much trying to do what they can on the cheap, myself included ( I would love 2 new maxed out Mac Pro 8 cores, BUT...).  My specs are below and with this setup I find that after all the software/firmware updates my system works fine, far from perfect but with a good workflow and some patience I can get most any job completed on time and on budget. I think Harm's post above with links to setting up your OS and optimizing your workstation is critical to success. It made a world of difference for my setup. The next thing I'm finding is the most important thing are your hard drives, you need em fast and plentiful. Ever since I went to one drive for OS/APPS, one for content and a RAID 0 for the scratch disk. My render times and app hang ups/crashes decreased substantially. What I am now finding with my set up is as my external content hard drive fills up, the slower it gets (basic HD logic). Which causes my projects/source monitor playbacks to hang and sometimes crash. So my next step is to set up another internal RAID 0 scratch disk for temp content storage ( I believe the less Adobe has to read/write from the same hard drives the better ). I will load what I need on it for the project then wipe it clean when finished. I am amazed at how quickly you can fill up a 1TB hard drive with HD footage, pics, project folders etc. So my feeling is you can be very productive with a decent workstation, correct hardware setup and lots of big, fast hard drives. On a side note, I can also tell you to delete any resource in your project window that you are not using in your timeline prior to rendering as the media encoder loads EVERYTHING that is in your project window before encoding and that can take up some valuable time.
Dave
Workstations:
ASUS M2N32-Sli Deluxe MB
AMD Athlon Phenom 9850 Quad Core 2.5 GHz
6GB RAM
1 GT8800 512MB GPU
Vista 64bit loaded on 1TB 7200 rpm internal SATA II HD
Scratch Discs are 4 SATA 80GB 7200 rpm internal RAID 0
Content Storage on 1TB 7200 rpm external SATA HD
Cameras:
Sony HDR-SR11
Canon HV20
Canon XH-A1