Assistance needed! - How can I bring a segment from a video into Premiere Pro CS5?

Hello, so I need to basically talk about some films in this Uni project, and to do that I need to show video examples.

So I need to grab a small clip from the 700MB AVI's I have downloaded of these different films.


I've tried loads of stuff. I've tried trimming the selection on Quicktime Pro Mac, and this gives me what I want in terms of length, so now I have the section of the video I want, but now I can't import it into Premiere because I don't have the right codec.

I've also tried trimming the selection then exporting it as AVI and MP4 and MPEG and stuff. That doesn't work.


I've tried importing the films directly into Premiere, some work and I am able to cut them, others go out of synch, others have no audio at all.


I'm stumped. How can I do this quickly and pain-free?


To summarize, I need a program that will chop a section of a film .avi and then I need to bring it in to Premiere Pro with working audio.

Thanks.

If you can get your file over to a PC, try using Virtualdub. It's a free program that will allow you to open your AVI, choose in/out points, set a compression codec and export with audio painlessly.