ILife 09: AVCHD to Toast to iMovie 09 (Workflow)

iLife 09 is here and you will be ofcourse curious to compose your first movie in it. The problem is you have got a camera which produces AVCHD format.
One simple Solution is to attach your camera with notebook, start iMovie and import movie. But I have copied all my AVCHD to folders on my notebook as I don't have time to empty my Memory card by capturing it through iMovie.

Toast to Rescue:

IMP: In Toast 10 Preference (Audio & Video) set Chapter Markers to None, otherwise your converted movies will not be visible in iMovie 09.

Fireup your Toast (Toast 9 or 10) and select convert choose the AVCHD (.mts) file or just drag and drop that file into Toast. Start the conversion, choose following setting:

In Device Choose H.264 Player

In Quality Choose Custom

and change the setting according to screen given below in picture. Now Start Converting.

The Advantage of using Toast is two folds. First the conversion is very fast and Second the file sizes are quite small.
iMovie 09:
Import your converted movie into IMovie 09 using Import Movie Command and then start composing your movie.
Export your Movie using Share command in iMovie 09 using Large Format. (It will be automatically set for you).