lossless editing

have a Macbook pro running 10.6.8, 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3. I am new to video, and am trying to edit some camera files that are MTS. I ran them through the Wondershare converter (mov) and found that iMovie 11 has a big drop in resolution. I read that it is because of single field processing, and that older versions of iMovie (06 and HD) do not use that.

I'm working with someone who is running FCP7, so ideally whatever I do needs to be able to be opened there.

I just downloaded the FCP X trial version, but saw online that there is no backwards compatibility with FCP7. Arrrgg.

I found my old iMovie HD from 2005 that may have lossless editing, but it was glacial in importing the file. The fcp x in contrast seems great in that way.

Since I am new to this, and don't have access to the buckets of money to buy fcp7, I was hoping someone on this list might have some ideas and/or suggestions for how to proceed. Thanks in advance,

K Clayton