Best fromat to Pre-Render, then work with

I have been searching the forum for a topic that I have seen before here, yet I can't find it.

I seem to remember that a lot of people here have a preferred file format they like to convert their raw footage to before editing, to optimize performance.

I am asking this question for a friend, who's raw footage is a 1.5hr .mpg2. His video preview is stalling to the point that it is unusable.

I believe the format often mentioned is of the uncompressed variety. What working format do you folks like to pre-render to, then work with? What program should I use to convert to this format?

In the meantime, I am going to recommend my friend use the no-compression render to break up this large file, see how that works.

Thanks for the info, John. That is exactly what I was looking for.

I was surprised that .mpg2 wasn't working for him either. At this point, we are thinking the file is corrupt about 1hr in.

Thanks again.